Is love enough?
by Tismen
Summary: When the war is over, Harry confronts Hermione about the kiss she gave Ron. Now he needs to decide what to do with his life and if Hermione will remain with him. Choose your own ending. Complete. Poll at my perfile about the story.
1. STORY

**STORY**

The battle was over and Harry was positively shocked at being the winner and survivor. He was very tired of the path he had to walk, every danger, every wound, every death… Not only his body, also his mind and soul were restless. And now that it was over he was alone. Everybody was partying with their surviving families and friends; everybody except him. Nobody went to thank him, to talk to him, or to invite him to party with them. Not even the Weasleys, who were happy that everything was over and sad for Fred's death. Quite the opposite, they had dropped a hint so he left them alone.

Even Hermione left him alone only to stay with Ron. And that was something that he couldn't understand. After the redhead had left them at the tent, she and Harry had got closer than ever. Damn it! They even confessed their feelings for each other! He had explained the reason why he dated Ginny when he never really liked her that much, or why he hadn't invited her to the ball in the fourth year.

And now… he didn't understand why she kissed Ron when he made the elves remark. Or why she was so… affectionate towards the red head while he was being ignored.

He sighed. He decided going to sleep, so tired as he was. Perhaps he'd have a long and deep night of rest at last. Even his soul was tired. Try going on the verge of death and return and you'll see how a consuming activity it is.

He stood up and left without anyone being the wiser, except from a pair of blue eyes.

He went to the Gryffindor tower, where he looked for his old bedroom. With a wand move he turned his dirty clothes into something clean and got into one of the beds. Next he put some protection spells so he wasn't disturbed. There in the bed he began to think for the first time about the future. What to do now?

**…**

Next morning a more rested Harry got up and after a slow and relaxing bath, he thought about going to Dumbledore's old office to talk to his portrait. But when he arrived he heard Mrs. Weasley. He stopped and listened to the angry woman discussing with Dumbledore's portrait. Why she was so angry? When he heard the rest of the conversation he was speechless: the Weasley were counting on his death and they weren't happy that he had survived.

That was a hard blow, but he listened without making any noise so he could get every bit of information possible. When it was almost over he left. He went to the kitchen for breakfast while thinking about what he had just heard. But to his mind, which was too awake because of the last days, it didn't take too long to come with a plan…

…

Hermione was sad and happy at the same time. Happy at the fact that Harry's death had only been a lie when Voldemort showed his corpse. That picture had broken her heart.

On the other hand this just motivated her further to continue what she started in the six year. The fight between her mind and emotions had begun then. Her mind won that year, but her emotions came back when Ron left them and she feared for their lives. But now that everything was over… she had to think again in the future…

That's why she ignored Harry last night, and although she had planned to continue today, she didn't need it. When she went down to the Great Hall to have breakfast, she couldn't stop herself from looking for him or keeping an eye on the entrance in case he showed up. That never happened.

She had not seen him all day, what worried her; so she asked others for him. But when she was told he was talking to Kingsley about his future as auror, she let it be. She carried on keeping the Weasleys company the rest of the day.

However what she feared arrived in the afternoon. Harry showed up at last and he approached her.

It was time to face him.

**…**

Now that he had prepared everything about his future in the morning, it was time to face Hermione. He wanted answers.

- Can we talk privately? –he asked her seriously.

She nodded and they both went to an empty classroom.

They were quiet for a moment, having one of those silent conversations they were so famous for. Harry was who finally broke the ice.

- You have chosen him.

She only could nod downcast.

- Despite everything we went through, despite how close we were until he came back. Despite how badly he treated you, of how he insulted you and how he fought with you for anything.

- He changed…

- You know perfectly that's not true. I had already explained you about the book he was using…

- At least he studied to get me! –Hermione exclaimed going on the defensive-. He was interested enough in me to make the effort!

- Wasn't I too? I tried to show you my love the only way I knew, which was the way you taught me; as you were the only one to show me affection. I was there when you needed me, like you were for me! And when he had to choose between being with you and his own self comfort, he chose to think in himself!

- I'm sorry Harry –she answered with tears in her eyes-, but I have to think now in my future. When we were alone we hadn't a good chance of surviving the war, so if I was going to die I wanted you to know my true feelings for you. Now that everything is over you are becoming an auror and your life will still be in danger. I cannot live with that fear of losing you. Ron is the safe option.

The blackhead looked at her very sad, while suffering an internal debate over how to respond to that.

A part of him wanted to ensure her that he didn't want problems anymore; that he just wanted to stay with her (CHOICE 1).

Another part was telling him that he just left without saying another word, as she didn't love him enough (CHOICE 2).

And finally there was also another part of him that was imploring him to tell her of his plans, as he usual did, and try to persuade her to go with him (CHOICE 3).

Which option would he choose?

* * *

><p>This is my first attemp at writting a story in English, although it's only a translation of another of my fics. Please, write me reviews to tell me the mistakes I made, so I can improve.<p> 


	2. CHOICE 1

**CHOICE 1**

- My time of problems is over, Hermione. I love you, and I just want to stay with you.

- I'm sorry Harry –she answered with her eyes watering-, but although I also love you the world needs you more than me. They need their symbol, something to believe in; and they won't accept a 'mudblood' like me with you. To change the world you need public approval. And they'll only approve someone like Ginny.

- The world? They're just a bunch of spoiled children who don't feel like to do something for themselves! They preferred to hide behind a teenage! What the fuck do I care what they think? I'm not going on living the life they tell me!

Harry took a deep breath to calm down and then he said in a very serious and calm tone, which was showing the tension there was in the air.

- I have opened you my heart. You are who must answer me now. Look at my eyes and tell me you don't love me. Look at my eyes and tell me you prefer Ron. Tell me and I won't bother you again.

They fell silent, staring each other with such intensity that Hermione was finding to hold that gaze hard although she couldn't look away. Harry finally nodded.

- I understand –he said with a hard voice, trying to hold his grief-. All that time you were with me out of pity, because you felt sorry for me.

- NO! –she exclaimed in horror at the though-. My feelings for you were true! I was with you 'cause it was what I wanted! I regret nothing!

- SO WHAT?! –Harry shouted-. Tell me that you love me! Or tell me that you prefer him! TELL ME! LOOK AT MY EYES AND TELL ME!

- You're right. I love you –she muttered sadly while she took her wand surreptitiously-. I prefer you to Ron. But it is not right. Love is not enough.

And before he could react she aimed him and shouted:

- PETRIFICUS TOTALUS! OBLIVIATE!

The beams hit Harry, who froze and whose look was somewhat stunned.

- You'll forget the conversation we've just had –Hermione said with a very sadly tone, but at the same time decisively. This was what her mind was telling her that was the right thing, even though her heart was shattering as a result-. You'll also forget all close moments and all conversations about us we had when Ron left us. You'll forget that you love me… You love Ginny… You'll only remember that you had asked me to cast a spell on you so you weren't the master of the elder wand in case anyone in the future were to disarm you. Now you're telling me your plans about proposing to Ginny and how you need my help choosing the ring.

When she finished she broke the curse and without giving him time to recover she began to speak.

- Well, it's done. Now tell me, what are you doing with the elder wand?

Harry looked at her very seriously before answering.

- Nothing. I've already dealt with it, as with the other relics.

- What did you do whit them?

- I destroyed them –he replied shocking the brown-haired. But to continue the farce she asked quickly-. Then why did you ask me to disarm you?

- Because a destroyed them, nor their legend. And Hermione…

- Yes? –she asked expecting Ginny's subject, although he wasn't long in let her down.

- Do you remember that Occlumency book that you made me read so I learned to defend from Voldemort's thoughts?

- Yes –she answered sounding unsure. What was this?

- Thanks to it I finally discovered why I was unable to acquire those defenses.

- What was it?

- The fact that I received so many and so aggressive legeremens attacks by Voldemort over the years caused a profound mental injury. Adding to that the direct attacks by Snape in his attempt to 'teach' me made it even worse; permanently damaging my mind and making me unable to learn without healing me first. And as I know nothing of Occlumency, it will take several decades just to reach the level where I can start again.

- That is… terrible –she whispered, horrified.

- However the book mentioned one secondary and theoretical effect in that case.

- What?

- Immunity to any attempt to alter my memories. For example and theoretically, I'd have immunity to the obliviation.

- Immunity to… -Hermione looked up again with her eyes wide open in surprise.

- Petrificus totalus! –Harry exclaimed before she could react-. You've just proven it right.

The brown-haired was frozen like Harry was moments ago. Inside her, there were several emotions mixed strongly. Panic, sadness, shame, pain, some anger; but above all terror. A huge fear of what his reaction would be. There were many possibilities in her mind. To explode in rage (the one she thought was more probable) while making a huge accident with accidental magic; to pay her back with the same coin and to obliviate her; to curse her…

However Harry surprised her again doing what she expected less. And what hurt her more (although Harry didn't realize it). He turned around and walked to the door. Once there he stopped and said his last words without looking back.

- Good bye, Hermione. I don't think we'll see each other again.

No sooner said that Harry exited the classroom; leaving her crying, or that would be what she'd be doing at less if she wasn't frozen.

**…**

Once the spell finished and she was free, Hermione didn't take long in running to Harry's bedroom; but his belongings weren't there anymore. She asked everybody for him, however nobody had seen him. That night and the next ones she cried a lot; while during the days she went everywhere she could think trying to find him, without result. He wasn't anywhere they had camped, nor Godric Hollow, nor Grimmauld Place.

She was so immersed in her search that Ron got angry with her and thanks to his temperament, they have the worst argument ever where Hermione learned all the plans the Weasleys made for Harry; how they wanted to steal his money, to make him 'the bad guy' and to put him in Azkaban.

To protect herself, Hermione had to obliviate him the argument; but the subject didn't finish there. With the 'chosen one' disappearance, the ministry quickly 'repaired itself' so they could start his search (bribes and any king of fraud from most of the rest Voldemort's supporters who achieved getting away of their problems thanks to the world who preferred to get back their 'hero' to see justice done). Of course the 'new' government, when they were unsuccessful, they started another 'anti-Potter' campaign. They made him the 'villain' again and they tried to take all his belongings and all his gold from Gringotts, but they discover he had taken everything. This motivated them to search for him even more to obtain his wealth.

Years came by and things calmed down. The day to day went on and everything became the same again like it was between the wars: a peace time in which the 'purebloods' had a lot of control and the racism and tolerance were very deep. Hermione, as she had planned, got married to Ron and became one more of the 'big Weasley family'; however they didn't last very long together, especially because Ron expected Hermione became a housewife like Molly while he earned a very poor salary at George's joke's store, as he was unable to do anything else.

Later Hermione joined the Ministry to fight for equality; however she was basically used as a poster. Her ideas were always rejected and blocked, so she never went forward. She soon discover that as a muggleborn she had few employment opportunities despite her grades and knowledge; and as she needed money to live and it was too late to return to the muggle world, she had to carry on with it, trapped in a job with no future or outlet.

Over the years, purebloods went back to slowly taking control. The fact that the number of muggleborns to enter Hogwarts was annually increasing vs. the few teachers they had was the excuse that they needed to create the new 'selection of new students' laws. The abolished the muggleborns aids and made it so only the richest could go. Of course still without telling them the real situation in the wizarding world and that they barely had a chance to excel; as they were needed as the working-class.

New taxes for them, fees, more expensive selling prices, etc. And, of course, quite the opposite for those 'poor purebloods' who had to put up with that much filth. Much lower prices for them or nonexistent. When they finished their education, muggleborns were very poor and were desperate to find any job. Others left the country seeking better opportunities. And the rest tried to return to the muggle world.

It's clear that some muggleborns couldn't stand it too long and finally they snapped. They created a hidden 'resistance'. They investigated and sought the future muggleborns so they could meet them and convince them to absolutely refuse to go Hogwarts. They even put protection spells so they couldn't be forced.

And given the new fees and all money that came from these new wizards, three or four years without them was enough to start creating an economic crisis. Prices rose, especially for those muggleborns remaining. A lot of them refused to pay and started leaving too. The purebloods, being used to the low prices, also refused to pay; thus generating more controversy.

The 'resistance' took advantage of these internal fights to do something very unethical, but that they thought it was necessary for the 'Greater Good'. They started to deliver in the leading food and drink distributors (for wizards) sterility potions with the intention of preventing a new generation of pureblood racist. When they found out in 10 or 20 years, it'd may already be too late.

Hermione finally quit her job and left the country. Her goal? To find a place where she could forget and start anew. She was tired of so many wasted years, so many years of pain and of a deep and sincere regret. Finally her mind had met reality and had realized how wrong she had been. To be all those years without friends, family (they had disowned her once she had found them and had undone the spells in them), but especially without Harry was a real agony. After so much time she still loved him, and was really sorry for what she had done that day.

At first her stubbornness made her think everything that was happening was his fault. If he hadn't left, the wizarding world wouldn't be at the point it was now. But time had made her see reason. Had he remained, he would be jailed in Azkaban, and things would have developed anyway.

She never stopped Harry's search, although it was a passive thing for a time. However she never found anything. That made her think Harry was in the muggle world.

And now there she was, boarding a plane to France, ready to start a new life.

**…**

Across the world, a dreamy-eyed blonde went into a premise that despite being somewhat small, was quite busy and crowed. She went to the bar, where a waiter server her.

- Would you like something to drink or something to eat, miss?

- Something to eat, if you don't mind.

- Very well. What would you like?

- Tell the chef to prepare what nargles suggest him.

The waiter looked at her confused, but took note of it and went into the kitchen. He came out soon after with more understanding.

- Come with me, please.

The blonde followed the waiter and they both went into the kitchen, where a certain black-haired was cooking all sort of dishes at the same time but with a smile on his face, stating that he was comfortable doing that. The waiter left them alone and soon returned to the other side.

- Hello Harry.

Harry looked at her for a moment and smiled.

- Hello Luna. What are you doing here?

- Nargles told me that I should come here –they were silent for a moment-. I missed you.

- As I did –he whispered hugging her. Then he took his wand and a couple of moves later everything he had been cooking began to have itself done.

Mean while they sat at one of the kitchen's table and began to talk. A conversation between two friends that hadn't seen each other in a long time.

Luna stayed in the area that night, and the next, and the next… A week passed, two, a month… They talked; they went out and did many things together.

But that's another story.

* * *

><p>Please, tell me if there is something difficult to understand; because as I've already said, this is my first try in writting something in English (or translating one of my fics in this case) and I'm not sure if I'm expressing myself correctly.<p> 


	3. CHOICE 2

**CHOICE 2**

Harry was silent for a moment, looking at her sadly. He wondered why it was always him who had to suffer. What had he done to deserve the life he had had? He could not stop himself and started to cry, although he didn't realize it. Hermione did so, and that image broke her heart. However before she could say anything he spoke:

- Very well –he whispered as he wiped his tears now he had noticed them and turned around with the intention of leaving. He couldn't stay here with her. But at the classroom door he stood-. Could you do me one last favor at least?

- Sure –she replied in a voice broken by the grief she also was feeling.

- Just take care.

And with that said he left the classroom, leaving the girl not knowing what to focus her thoughts on.

On one hand her heart was torn apart because of rejecting the boy she loved, even though her mind was sure it was the right thing to do. His tears and his pained voice didn't help at all.

On the other hand she was wondering how on earth could Harry be so fucking noble. She has just broken his heart (after all, the black-haired could never hide his emotions from her); and yet he said her to take care? Where was his ego? Why didn't he shout, or try to persuade her, or do something? She had expected everything to be more difficult.

But the answer came soon to her mind: The black-haired never had much self-esteem. He had never valued himself enough to fight hard against the obstacles in his life. Therefore he would accept this new situation so quickly with hardly any complaints. For the same reason he'd also accept to join the 'big Weasley family' and to become an auror. His attitude was too submissive for some things.

A quarter of an hour later and once she managed to calm down enough to control her own emotions; she exited the classroom and began to look for Ron in an attempt to forget what just happened, or at least to get distracted. But instead she met Kingsley, one of the few surviving Order's members.

- Hermione, I was looking for you. We need your help.

- What with? What's the matter?

- This morning I talked to Harry about his future, and how people expects the savior to become an auror; but he refused. And even I insisted I didn't get to change his mind, saying things about people wouldn't take long in speak ill of him again and try to put him in Azkaban. We need you to persuade him. If anyone can, it's you.

Hermione was speechless upon hearing that. Had Harry refused to become an auror? And before they talked? Why didn't he tell her? Why didn't he interrupt her when she said it was not safe with him being an auror? That was the main reason she gave him and he hadn't countered it…

- Did he mention anything else? –Hermione asked containing the emotions that were trying to overwhelm her again because of what she had just hear.

Kingsley frowned before he slowly nodded.

- Yes. He specifically mentioned having overheard a conversation by some Weasleys planning something against him, and if that was the life that lay ahead of him from those who he considered family, then they could all go to hell. I explained that it was likely he had heard wrong or misinterpreted things, but he ignored me.

They both were silent for a few moments before the auror spoke again:

- Perhaps he's still very uneasy after all that happened to him. To calm him down we only have to prove they don't plan anything against him. But in the meantime I still prefer you to talk to him.

Once he said that he left, however Hermione didn't hear those last words. The machine that was her head was working at 100 m. per second. Her emotions were beating her even harder than before. She had to find Harry and talk to him again.

**…**

In the meantime, on the other side of the castle, a certain black-haired paused in his way towards the outside on having bumped into an obstacle. Specifically, a certain blonde.

Harry noticed the trunk beside her, and looked at her with questioning eyes.

She gave him a sheet of parchment.

- Send a copy handwritten and signed by you to the Prophet tomorrow. Then come to my house to get me.

Harry took the paper and read it. He began to understand.

- Now let's go –she spoke again-. Keep my trunk with your things and take me home. I don't know how to apparate yet.

**…**

Hermione was very uneasy. She'd gone to the Gryffindor's tower, where the domestic elves had put their things after the battle; but all Harry's belongings had vanished. She went up to the bedrooms, however he wasn't anyone. She asked the elves for the place where he slept, but it was also deserted.

She asked for him to everyone she met, however nobody saw him since the previous day or didn't pay attention.

Feeling worse and worse, she went to the Great Hall. Sooner or later, Harry would have to pass by there.

But what she found there horrified her.

Kingsley, with the few 'leaders' of the Ministry who remained, had put veritaserum in the Weasley's drinks (of course without any of them knowing) to prove Harry his fears were unfounded. They didn't care doing something so unethical because they thought it was a small price to pay in return for Harry becoming an auror (in other words, the new poster).

Of course they didn't expect Harry been right. Except for the eldest son, Bill; the rest had plans for him which involved taking his money away and sending him to Azkaban. Apparently Mrs. Weasley was the one who had inspired and encouraged those plans, while her husband, Arthur, just did whatever she said.

That almost provoked all the witness to start cursing the red-haired family. The few aurors found it hard to hold them.

But the evil was already done. How could they persuade Harry now? That was the only thought in their minds. They needed the 'boy-who-won' as a poster to show the world everything was fine.

Hermione was the most shocked of all. How could they do that to Harry? And having heard from Ron's mouth he only considered 'Potter' useful to him getting some fame without having to make the effort, or that he still considered her as a terrible know-it-all who he was only seducing so Harry didn't have her…

It hurt, both mentally and emotionally. Mentally by the fact her 'safe choice' had been torn apart and made ashes. Emotionally for having chosen him instead of Harry and observing the result.

That made her to look even more actively for Harry. She asked to almost everyone for him and enlisted (somewhat forced) Neville to help her. She tried many times to summon the Marauder's map, but without effect. Night came and she still didn't know anything about him. Once in bed, it took her several hours to fall asleep in the crowd of tears that were falling from her eyes.

But if she thought she was depressed by all this, it was nothing compared to what she felt while reading the newspaper the next morning.

"_To whoever read this:_

_I'm Harry Potter, also known as 'the-boy-who-lived' or 'the-chosen-one'. I'm writing this letter as my goodbye. You have read well, as goodbye. Since I'm leaving._

_Where? You'll ask. As far from you and your damn wizarding world as I can. I'm tired of how you treat me. I lived the first 11 years of my life in complete ignorance about magic and I was treated worse than a house elf because of Albus Dumbledore. You are not able to think for yourselves and like sheep you follow others' orders, and it doesn't matter how absurd they are. So what if someone has done great things? It is impossible to always be right. Albus Dumbledore was responsible of sending me to a magic hater muggle family, and he knew it. There are many who had welcomed me, but he decided I needed to be 'shaped' from youth into submission and acceptance of orders._

_And what did you do? The few who asked said: well, if Dumbledore says so then it's the right thing. Why? What he knew of looking after children? Did he have any? Yes, he was the headmaster; but he was rarely in direct contact with them. Besides the fact that almost the time he was more occupied with his other political positions._

_Instead during those wears you took advantage of me. You started to publish all sort of things about me no matter if it was fiction or not. You never asked, you only were interested in money._

_Then comes Hogwarts, they explain me all about the magic worse than any other muggleborns. The just told me the public version of what happened that night and that I am famous, that's all. Since I was very young I've always hated being the centre of attention, and when somebody saw me, he behaved like I was an animal in a zoo._

_Years came by and the politics and important people start to show interest in me because of the publicity I can give them; but as I was not interested, they started to speak ill of me, of me and the few friends I made. However it was worse when I witnessed Voldemort's return. I saw, for the first time, how a classmate was killed in front of me; and anybody volunteered any support? No. They spoke ill even more for telling a truth which the politics didn't want to see._

_What happened when it was proved I was right? All of you start with the nonsense of 'I am the chosen one' blablabla. I wasn't even of age, damn it! How the hell did you think I was going to save all your asses? I don't have super powers, and during the years Dumbledore made sure that I (and many others) have a dreadful education in certain subjects._

_Do you not believe me? Ask his damn portrait in his old office! You'll discover how in his long career as headmaster he decided, 'for the greater good', to take off many books and information sources in many subjects from the Hogwarts library. After all, it isn't good that students know something about history that has nothing to do with goblin revolts or the witch inquisition, right? Tell me, how many people passed history since Dumbledore was the headmaster? And how many with a high note? And what's the matter if students don't learn to conjure when hungry? Because although it's true it can't be conjured out of nothing by the laws of I-don't-remember-who; it's possible to find a way around to that problem. Where do you think all the food of Hogwarts came from?_

_So, why did you expect that I solved your problems for you? What do I have that you don't? You are the older and responsible ones, nor me! Yet you put all your hopes in a 17 years old boy. You said that you were giving me your support, but when Voldemort conquered the Ministry, you just bowed your heads. 'Someone will do the work for us.' You though. Yes, I did, but not for you. I did it only because he already was obsessed with me. In the end it was him or me._

_What would have happened if you had helped? Many of you moaned about the fact that children were the ones who fought and died. Many of you are blaming me for their deaths. Who would have fought then when their parents simply did nothing? If you had helped fewer innocent people would have died._

_And what happens now everything is over? Nothing is over. Voldemort was merely a consequence of the real disease that consumes the wizarding world. The reason of all this it's still here, I've seen it over all these years after the first war. Racism is still there. Parents still teach their sons to hate those who are different, the muggleborns specially._

_And do you know what they planned for me? Now the Ministry of Magic wants me to work as an auror there. That is, they want me to be their 'poster' to tell the world everything is okay. I've also heard, even between the 'light side', how some of them planned to take away what I recently discovered I had inherited from my family, label me as the new Dark Lord and send me to Azkaban._

_What do you want me to say? I won't allow it, so that's why I'm leaving. I am leaving this world full of people incapable of thinking for themselves. I'm starting a new life where I can be normal, where nobody is pointing fingers or whispering things about me._

_Some people are bound to try to steal my inheritance or to find me, however I've made sure they can't. I removed all my money from Gringotts to take it with me. I paid several experts to put spells on me to prevent any owl to find me._

_It's certain that the wizarding world as you know it won't survive long. And I'm not helping you to fix it."_

The letter in the newspaper caused a stir everywhere, but specially to Hermione. She soon returned to her room to pick up and start looking for Harry, this time outside Hogwarts and before he left.

In the rest of England? Well, there were various opinions. However the main one from muggleborns and half-bloods was indignation and going to check if what was written was true. During the next weeks waves of people visited the school and the Ministry, and when they discovered it was true… the revolution began.

Many began to leave as well (those who hadn't left during the war), and the rest began to complain to the Ministry; who, weakened as it was, didn't have too much strength to resist no matter how much the purebloods wanted. As a result there was anarchy, which lasted many months until a more extreme group of muggleborns, half-bloods and few purebloods (led by some of those who fought Voldemort, such as Neville) took the Ministry by force.

The purebloods didn't have too many resources left to use their habitual methods (bribes and the like), so it was useless to say they were under the Imperius curse again. They tried it anyway; but this time others didn't accept to still being treated as scum and they responded, humiliating many purebloods. Few declared themselves neutrals, the rest united again without a formal leader as 'death eaters' and began to attack. The problem was that muggleborns didn't run scared anymore, now they responded; as a result many purebloods fall. They discovered to their horror that not only they were less numerous, but also they were exceeded in power. It was a hard blow to their pride.

Years later, the faction of muggleborns, half-bloods and some others succeeded in launching the first steps of a fairer government; where to fight against the corruption and all bad government problems they used the Sorting Hat, which had no trouble to select the best candidates for the new government. After all since it was created it had acquired autonomy and independence enough thanks the Hogwarts' magic to do more that its main function of sorting the students.

It would be difficult; however they had taken the first steps to a better world.

Hermione, in the other, was looking for Harry for weeks; feeling more and more depressed. It was not until she visited the Lovegood's house that she found something:

"_Dear Hermione. If you are reading this then, as I thought; you are looking for Harry._

_The first thing I'll say is that he is with me. Or I'm with him, because I could not, or I didn't want to leave him alone when I knew he was leaving._

_You caused a big injury when you choose Ron; and although he still loves you, it is not something he will be able to heal completely._

_That's why I'm writing you this. To him you were his first and greatest love. Ginny and Cho weren't more than simple attraction. And he'll always remember you and will continue to feel that love for you._

_Maybe in the future he finds another love. Perhaps I help him to heal and he falls in love with me as I always have been a bit with him. I'm not sure what the future holds. I only know that now you have to make a final decision._

_You have 3 years to find him. During that time I know that if you appear, he'll forgive you and you still can have a happy life together. After that it will be too late._

_But it may be that before you find him he has fallen in love again. I see many possibilities, and the truth is that are few in which are only both of you together._

_Are you willing to take the risk?_

_The only clue to his whereabouts I'll give you is to look for him in France, as the country is famous in what Harry wants to study and learn._

_Signed:_

_Luna Lovegood"_

Hermione read the letter again and again during the next week. She had read between lines and knew Luna was referring that maybe in that time in which Luna was the only support of the black-haired, Harry could fall in love with her. However she seemed to suggest that if she found them, she would have to share him with her or another person…

A week later Hermione embarked on a plane for Australia. It was time to find her parents, who she'd find in a couple of weeks.

Afterwards? Well, that's another story.

* * *

><p>Sorry for the wait. I was looking for a beta reader for this story, but I didn't have any luck.<p>

I hope you liked it.


	4. CHOICE 3

**CHOICE 3**

- I won't be an auror. I just want peace and quiet. I love you, Hermione; and I want to be with you for rest of my life.

- You always wanted to be an auror. I don't want you to not fulfill your dream because of me, Harry –she answered with effort because of the sadness she was feeling at having to break the young wizard's heart, as well as touched by his tenacity.

- That was all I thought I could do. I saw that job as the key to surviving Voldemort. It is not longer necessary.

- But there are still all his followers left! Someone has to fight them!

- And that someone is not me. I… my plans depend on you, Hermione. I want to be with you. I want to help you achieve your equality plans for all. I want to help you fight contempt and racism which plague the wizarding world by doing something I discovered that I was good in thanks to you.

- W… what?

- Teaching. You perfectly know I don't care anything or anyone from the wizarding world, who first praise me, then hate me, then praise me again because they need me… They'll hate me again soon and label me as the new 'dark lord', Voldemort successor. They'd try to send me to Azkaban and take away my inheritance. Maybe not today, nor tomorrow… but they'll do it. So I have to make the most of this time to do something to protect myself. I'm willing to help you to fix this world, to help you with all the plans you had told me about when we were alone in the tent. I'll use up what I have left of my fortune in building a new school, one where all the muggleborns and halfbloods will go to when they show magic for the first time. A place where we'll teach them not only magic, but also the muggle subjects. Physics, chemistry, mathematics, literature, philosophy, physical education… We'll teach them equality, fraternity, freedom. We won't protect those who misbehave, as they do here in Hogwarts; we won't let injustice go unpunished. If the purebloods don't want us, then we'll leave them.

- Not every pureblood deserves that treatment.

- No, but the vast majority. Of course we'll admit some pureblodds, because I doubt some like Neville or Luna would bring their children up with that dogma, however the rest wouldn't want to put their children in a school which teaches muggle 'nonsense'. To change the world you must change the next generation mentality. Dumbledore never did anything in his belief that punishing those who misbehaved will distance them from the 'light'. But the decision is yours, Hermione. I love you and I offer you all I have. My fame, my money and myself to love you and help you to achieve your dreams. No more wars, no more battles, no more duels or races against death.

- And your dreams? –whispered Hermione weakly.

Harry took her hand and lifted her head to look lovingly into her eyes.

- My great dream was always to have a family, my own family. Without you that dream is nothing. When I was with the Dursley my only goal was leaving them and not seeing them again; going anywhere far from them where I'd be able to form my own family and to bring my sons up differently as I grew up. When I arrived to Hogwarts my goal became to survive, pure and simple. How could I achieve the rest of my goals if I'm not alive? Yes, I had other dreams, other goals of what I'd like to become one day, but I can still achieve them in the next 30 years; now that I know for sure I'll live that long. You are my priority.

They fell silent again, while still looking deeply into their eyes.

- What… what would you do if you didn't want to be with me? –she asked with insecurity and breaking the silence.

Harry moved away a bit from her, looking to the floor with sad eyes; but he answered firmly.

- I'd go to the muggle world. I always liked cooking and I'd go to someplace to learn about that. Later I'd try to open my own premise. That is something I could also do being with you, even if I have to wait 30 years.

Plucking up courage he moved closer to her and to her surprise he kissed her. A kiss full of his passion in which she, consciously or unconsciously, responded with equally or even more passion, if that's possible. A kiss where Harry tried to put all his love for her. A kiss that expressed everything, saying nothing at all.

- You have to make up your mind, Hermione –Harry said moving away from her again once the kiss ended-. I'm not blind. I know you love me. You've shown me by the way you look me, by the way your heart beats when I'm close to you, by how you used to smile to me at seeing me, by how you've always done your best to help me, by how you've responded to this and all those kisses we've shared in that tent, by how you cuddled up in my chest in those long cold nights, by that beautiful smile that appeared in your face when you woke up next to me. The question is: do you love me enough to want to be with me in the good and bad?

What will reply Hermione? Will she accept Harry (CHOICE 3.1) or will she reject him (CHOICE 3.2)?

* * *

><p>Here it's my new try on translating this.<p>

The next ones is going to take a bit long because of their length. If someone would like to help me...


	5. CHOICE 3-1

**CHOICE 3.1**

Hermione collapsed. She felt to her knees weeping badly.

- Why?

Harry, caught by surprise at that reaction, didn't know how to react.

- Why what?

- Why do you have to be so fucking… perfect? I can't bear to lose you again. It broke my heart to see Voldemort displaying your dead body yesterday. I couldn't bear to it happen again. It'd hurt too much. That's why I wanted to get away. Why did you have to say me something so… romantic and special? What girl can say no to that? I love you too much…

- Because that's what I feel and you know it –he replied with a little smile as he approached her, lifted her up and hugged her-. The Harry who attracted problems died last night with the disappearance of my scar.

Hermione pulled back and saw amazed that, indeed, the black-haired's scar was almost gone. There was only a slight mark.

- How?

- The last horcrux was in the most unexpected place. So I had to die, and Voldemort had to be the one to kill me so I could survive. And it also killed my problems' magnet. For the first time in my life I feel there won't be so many calamities in my way. Without it I don't feel obliged to be the 'savior'. It was the scar that gave me that title.

Hermione smiled.

- Maybe, but you are the hero. MY hero –she mentioned before beginning another kiss Harry responded enthusiastically.

- And is the hero who gets the girl –he latter added with a mischievous smile before kissing her again to silence the protests that were to come from her lips.

**…**

The next years weren't easy for the young couple, but to their relief there were not more life-or-death situations ever again.

Harry told Hermione about what he had heard from Mrs. Weasley and the plan she was of sending him to Azkaban making with the help of Dumbledore's portrait, forcing him to impregnate Ginny with love potions or something like that so they could take away his money and get rid of him so he couldn't become too powerful.

To check his words, or at least tell who was guilty and who was not, they used compulsion spells and obliviates to force them to tell the truth without them remembering. They were shocked at discovering that except Bill, every Weasley was aware of everything and didn't think anything wrong of it. At the end they decided that the best (although unethical) course of action was erasing any memory about the plan and, with compulsion spells, encourage them to never feel any desire of approaching them or taking any action that had to do with them (as involving them in a crime or robbing them, which were their plans). By the way they also obliviated Ron all about the Deathly Hallows, because with his big mouth he was bound to tell somebody about them.

And speaking of them; when Hermione asked him what he was thinking of doing with them, he answered that he'd already destroyed them and thrown the remains through the Veil of Death.

Obviously there were still people who wanted to use Harry as the 'poster boy' and tried again and again to make him an auror (among other things). However he always refused. At first he managed to evade them by saying he was rather young and that he wanted to learn more about 'the wizarding world' as he never had the chance before. Some (of course) tried to threaten him with taking his money, but he'd already spoken to the goblins some time ago and taken it out; so the threats fell in deaf ears.

They didn't have to worry of the Death Eaters anymore, because Kingsley, who was the next Minister of Magic, didn't have too much opposition to find and bring to justice anyone sympathizer or/and with the mark. The bribes didn't save anyone, everybody was given veritaserum and judged. Of course, it helped that Harry send a letter to the Prophet mentioning how sad was that the last time many Death Eaters had escaped their right punishment that way and now they have done so much damage again…

The young couple looked for her parents, but unfortunately they were too angry for what Hermione had done to them and for a few years they didn't speak to her (or Harry); something that would have broken her if not for the constant support from Harry.

Over the next 3 years, they were mainly devoted to study while they began to prepare everything. If they wanted to open that school Harry had talked about, first they needed to get all the required knowledge. They began to look for people willing to teach the children both magical and muggle subjects. They found funny that all 'tutors for squibs' (as few as they were) were vampires, but it was logic. Who else in the wizarding world would acquire knowledge about anything not about the wizarding world even if only because they were bored?

They were able to contact and obtain some promising responses from the oldest ones who were very very bored. Spending some time updating their own knowledge so they could teach some brats later? And also they offered them potions against dependency of blood? Why not?

Remembering Remus, they also sought some werewolves who were interested in a job and were good at teaching. They offered to provide them shelter for the full moon and the Wolfsbane potion.

They bought a land where the school would be built. The first ones to go there were the vampires, because they wanted to set everything to their liking.

Harry and Hermione visited many others magical schools along the world to compare teachings and methods, while acquiring many new books. In fact their school library was everyday larger, to Hermione's joy. Among all their purchases, copies and donations from the vampires (who had accumulated many things in their long lives); it soon surpassed Hogwarts' one.

Obviously spending so much ended using Harry's inheritance up; but they'd found another quick way of making money that made them richer than the late Malfoy family. Apparently the galleons were made of real gold and their exchange rate to muggle money was 1/5; but Harry and Hermione could sell the galleon as gold in the muggle world where the exchange rate (gold/money) gave them a huge lot more of muggle money which they convert to galleons again… Wizards and goblins are fools. They amassed several small fortunes, and with that money they invested in all kind of things along the world.

Finally it was time to start looking for students, but after investigating (secretly, of course) how muggleborns were identified in Hogwarts; they found that was all due to a special pen which wrote everything in a book. To their surprise it was very easy to make an exact copy of the pen and of every child who was registered and expected to go there (there was information about the next 10 years). Before leaving Hogwarts they decided to add another spell to the pen so that each time it was about to write the name of a new 'muggleborn', it'd write instead the last name written. It would be years before Hogwarts teachers began to notice something strange…

Harry and Hermione began contacting the families of young children (from 1 to 5 years) to explain them the existence of magic, about the situation in the world, about the school and the reason why they were contacting them so soon…

Time passed by and the school opened for the first time. Secretly, of course. So far the ministry had not notice anything yet. After all, there was no law against it (they had made sure of that). On the contrary, they had registered the school as a 'cultural camp' where young wizards would learn the culture differences between the magic world and the muggle one (but only in the magic ministry, in the muggle one they were registered as an official private school). Needless to say, the ministry didn't like the idea and demanded a list of every 'pureblood' enrolled. However between the fact that there was none and the camp's representative (one of the vampires, so that no one knew that Harry had something to do) was in charge of paying the taxes (a tad higher than normal), they didn't care and ignored it. If there wasn't any 'pureblood' going there, everything would be quite right.

The minimum age entry was 6 years old. At that age they'd start basic or primary education. Parents, although at the beginning they didn't trust the education quality, ended very pleased. Most of them only tried it out the first years because it was mostly free, except some materials that the school itself sold very cheap. They even had fast a safe way for the children to return home! However the best of it was that they were assuring the children's protection. Every child had to wear a magical medallion that in an emergency would take them home or to school. What else could a parent ask for?

By this time Harry proposed to Hermione, who was delighted. They tried again to contact her parents, who after so long without knowing about their daughter hastened to make amends with her. They married two months later.

When their first students were 11, they were visited by a teacher from Hogwarts (the official explanation to the magic world and the invitation to Hogwarts). It was quite common (and expected) that some of them turned them down, as it wasn't compulsory to go; but never before there was a year were absolutely every child rejected the invitation. However the teachers from Hogwarts simply shrugged their shoulders and said that it was sheer chance.

Of course they began to get nervous when it happened again the next year. Why? Because the previous year the school had the lower number of new students in centuries. There were hardly any purebloods and the half-bloods were beginning to reject the invitation too. There were just about 20 new students. 20 of the usual 50 or 60!

They warned the ministry at the third year, however they did nothing at all. Why? First because it wasn't illegal to reject the invitation. And secondly because there were still too many purebloods who were pleased to hear that.

That same year Hermione gave birth to their first children, the twins Henry Dereck Potter and Logan Cole Potter. Two years later would come a little girl, Kristie Jay Potter; and a year after that would come the last one, Carol B. Potter.

A couple of years later the teachers of Hogwarts (finally) discovered the repeated names in the lists… By Merlin! As that pen was unique (never another was needed) and it was impossible to rewrite the names, for the following 11 years there wouldn't be any muggleborns. Most of the 'respectable' community members didn't hide their joy (less mudbloods); however their humor completely changed when they were told that without them Hogwarts didn't get enough money to maintain the school, and if there wasn't soon an increase of students they would have to treble purebloods taxes.

That, of course, made a racket between those who were willing to pay more so their children didn't have to be with 'mudbloods' and those who preferred the money.

Some people suggested using 'Hogwarts funds', but apparently it was cancelled and seized years ago because one of the conditions they had to follow was always having 10 muggleborns at least every two years. Some complained about that condition and demanded to reinstate it without that condition; however that wasn't possible because it was an old donation from the Potter family which was been invested so it lasted.

Of course some people tried it anyway, but as Harry didn't have his money in Gringotts anymore they couldn't seize it. The few who didn't think he didn't have any money left (if it wasn't in Gringotts, where?) looked for him and demanded it. A few obliviates and compulsion spells ended any problem.

When it was time for their first students to graduate and to take the final exams at 17 (they managed to persuade some international examiners); Harry and Hermione set up an enterprise (located in foreign land, although they had unlimited permissions to go in and out of the country) and they employed them. There wasn't a clear goal. For now they only wanted to encourage them to continue studying, whether in muggles universities or magical degrees around the world.

But at the same time that meant that there was fewer and fewer people applying for regular jobs (muggleborns from Hogwarts). The Ministry? Happy they had to put with fewer 'mudbloods' applying for important jobs that were obviously for purebloods. They didn't think anything else.

Another thing about the situation was that with no new muggleborns at Hogwarts and therefore at the Wizarding World, there were no new people applying for the everyday jobs which the Ministry views as insignificant ones. What is the meaning of that? Well, for example there were no new people working on making magical cauldrons, or growing the magical plants for the everyday potions. There were no new people to produce ink, parchment or plumes. There were no new people obtaining material for clothes, or making glasses, cutleries, plates, furniture… It was not like the purebloods were going to deign to perform such tasks.

However Harry and Hermione's company took care of the demand that normal stores could no longer meet. Some from the Ministry didn't like this new competition, but they had no choice but to accept it to meet the public demand in everyday objects. Other people were interested in joining this new growing wealth, and threatened the 'public face' quite a bit (Harry still didn't want to attract attention); but as always obliviates and compulsion spells were used to be left alone; nothing more and nothing less.

Goblins were also ones of the most deeply affected, because the company didn't do business with them nor used the bank vaults to keep their gold. That meant goblins were making less and less money. Add to this all the gold they have been losing in the last few years because of several people exchanging very frequently muggle money for galleons. So to their greed, not having all that gold the company was moving around was below the belt. They sent agents to persuade them, but they were refused. They tried to make them accept by force, and they even tried to rob them, but the security the company had developed was very effective because it was a blend of muggle defenses, elven, vampiric and other races and countries magic. Basically the goblins couldn't counter everything.

Harry, to fix the problem in a peaceful (although a bit amoral) way, infiltrated Gringotts (not alone, of course) and modified memories, official papers and anything else so they didn't draw attention, or at least to make them look in another direction (like the Ministry).

Between this and that, time went by. Harry and Hermione lived happy raising their children and teaching new generations. When their children reached age 11, the Hogwarts letters arrived. Of course they rejected them. What a big shock! A lot of people would visit them to convince them otherwise, to beg them and even to threaten them, however they didn't budge. Their children were already receiving a better education.

At the rate their company was going, they basically would control an 80% of the country economy; and when that happened they would execute the next part of their plan: As they had a lot of muggles, muggleborns, halfbloods and some others; they would send a missive to the International Wizarding Organization saying that they were becoming independent from the British magic Ministry and that they would make their own government.

What happened next? Well, Harry went to study about cooking and catering to some muggle university while supporting Hermione in her doings to change the world. But that, my friends, it's another story.

* * *

><p>It has been a time since the last update.<p>

I hope you like it.

I've tried to rewrite all chapters to correct my mistakes, but as always I'm not sure if I did a good job. Please, tell me if you find any mistake so I can correct it.


	6. CHOICE 3-2

**CHOICE 3.2**

There was total silence in the classroom. A minute, two, five, ten... and nothing was said. The tension was getting bigger at the same pace Harry's heart was cracking. Hermione was looking down in shame, unable of meeting his gaze.

- I see -Harry softly answered at the end and holding back the tears that once again threatened to fall-. In that case there isn't anything left to say.

The young man turned around and got ready to leave, however the brown-haired's hand stopped him.

- You... you can't leave. You are needed.

- Needed? Who needs me? -he asked without turning around.

- Everyone needs you, the wizarding world needs you.

- I've already done much more that any child should ever have to. Now is their turn to stop being sheep and fight for the reconstruction of the country you and they love.

- Think, Harry! They need some to guide them! They need...!

- ...to learn to think for themselves. They need to decide for themselves what they want; and not that somebody do it instead.

- It's for the Greater Good! -Hermione shouted frustrated in the face of his refusal.

- According to whom? You? One of your worst faults is that you are so stubborn that you have to be right even if you are not. You might not want to admit it, but you're afraid of the unknown; you are scared of what lay in wait out of the safety your knowledge gives you. That's why you want Ron, because you hope to change the way he is so he becomes like his father and so that you become, like his mother, the boss. I led to a life filled with the unknown, of questions; while Ron is more reliable, a constant you can control and predict.

- That doesn't matter! You know I'm right! -she exclaimed, trying to ignore the nerve his words had touched- Why aren't you listening to me then?

- I don't believe you're right. I almost always listen to you, and now you are so used to it that you cannot accept it. You have made your decision, Hermione. I have made mine.

He loosened of her grip and headed for the door, however Hermione took out her wand and sent a desmaius, which the teen dodged and took out his own wand.

- I'm... surprised -said Harry, hurt by the action-. Are you really unable of accepting my refusal? Would you go to such as extent so that I do as you say? Would you really made me obey by force?

The look he gave her made Hermione drop her wand and began to cry all embarrassed.

- S... sorry.

Harry didn't say a word. He just left.

**…**

The next days were sad to Hermione. Harry left, exactly as he said; and she, as apology for what she had tried, talked to Kingsley and persuaded him to left the young hero alone, because he only went 'on holidays' to run away from the fame he hated so much. Of course the Weasley family criticized it a lot, especially Mrs. Weasley, who seemed to want Harry to come back and to marry Ginny immediately.

People, who wanted to see their 'savior', was appeased with the announcement that Harry Potter was taking "well deserved holidays that were paid by the Ministry as gratitude'. Hermione got upset in the face of such a lie, however she thought it necessary to not bring anymore chaos among people.

In the following weeks she would get tired of putting up with the unending hints from Mrs. Weasley, which were less and less subtle, to marry Ron once and for all. Fed up, she went to Australia to search for her parents, with the intention of using the time to think about her own future, now that she had that talk with Harry.

She found them in a month (more or less), and they almost disowned her. It would be two weeks before they made it up and she could start to plan her return to England (without her parents, who had chosen to remain there), now calmer and with the clear intention of following her old plans of settling with Ron; despite of how much she missed Harry and with her heart broken since that conversation. But what else could she do now?

Of course when she came back she never expected to find another anti-Harry-Potter campaign; and according to it, the hero had become the new Dark Lord who went on a journey to recruit followers and to carry out dark rituals.

And to her horror the Weasleys were the ones to start it! The campaign was being supported by all the remaining traditionalist purebloods and Voldemort's followers who still were alive and free, in other words, those left in power.

She faced the Weasleys and demanded answers. They tried to convince her that what they were saying was the truth; however when they didn't win her to their cause, they tried threats and force. Thanks God Hermione had better reflexes than any of the redheads (after all during the war she was more active than any of them) and escaped from them.

The Weasley responded with new rumors about Hermione Granger: the right hand of the dark lord Harry Potter and the second coming to 'Bellatrix Legstrange'.

Hermione was forced to flee the country by muggle means. To say that she felt down was a huge understatement. Her plans were broken. What was left now for her? And what was the worst thing? That Harry was right. It hadn't take them a lot of time to paint him as the new Dark Lord. Now was when she, more than ever, regretted her decision.

She returned to her parents and decided to leave the wizarding world, like the blackhead did before. She'd still use magic every other day for her things, but she'd apply for a muggle job. She would work in a public library for the next years, where she would have hundreds of books to read, although none was about magic. She'd keep buying magical books and newspapers, and she'd spend her free time studying and researching the magical field which was her true passion: arithmancy.

Back in England, the Weasley family was slowly falling apart. Molly was appointed as 'the official person in charge of searching for Harry Potter' by the Ministry, which made her obsession for him worse. She was very angry when Hermione got away from them; and if you added the fact that they weren't managing to find Harry and that the black-haired had cleared his Gringotts' vault before leaving... Nope, she was not happy at all.

Arthur shrugged his shoulders and did everything his wife said. He really didn't care if the new rumors about Harry were true or not.

Fred's death changed George. He basically cut himself out from the world, not caring for anything nor anyone. Charlie returned to Rumania, tired of his mother's bossy, pushy and now 'anti-Harry Potter' attitude. Bill did the same with Fleur and both went to France.

Ron didn't want to continue studying, and to tell the truth he didn't have the skills for almost any job; so at the end her mother employed him as one of her new "hunters", the ones who had to track Potter. His main motives were: first getting the gold that Potter had taken with him; second to achieve fame for being "the one ending the new Dark Lord"; and last and the most important of all: to get the Death Stick and all others Deathly Hallows.

Ginny was very angry that "HER" Harry had left instead of marrying her like he should have already done. She wanted to blame Hermione, but she had stayed. Later on she got angrier when her mother started the campaign against him. How was she going to become the famous Mrs. Potter now? For a time she fooled around with others boys while looking for a new target. She tried getting closer to Neville, but he was not interested; and as he had already finished his senior year at Hogwarts, she has no chance to give him "Amorentia". In fact she couldn't meet him as they weren't close enough, nor she could get to his drinks either.

Just a year later they managed to find him by sheer chance… living among muggles and going to a cookery course! Did Harry Potter leave the Wizarding World to learn how to cook like a muggle? How could he dare?! They attacked him, taking him by surprise; however Harry still had the best survival instinct and managed to escape, but not without been seriously hurt.

Wounded and confused he fled to a place where he could recover. Once he got better he camouflaged himself and went back to the wizarding world to find out everything about his attackers (he had only recognized Ron as one of them). As he had thought, he discovered that he was once again the bad guy. At least he had made a plan for this and had prepared several safe houses under alias in different countries; so this time he didn't have to be on the run without resources as he was when the British Ministry fell to Voldemort.

He went to another country and took a new identity, where he tried to continue studying cookery, hotel and restaurant management; however he was, once again, found very fast. This time it was as if they could track him!

He tried to ask for political asylum to almost all the most important magical governments of the various countries he had safe houses on, but his bad name had spread a lot and was being used by pureblood factions all around the world to take control of the masses and their own countries. In the end they were interested in adding wood to the fire and put enormous rewards for his capture (dead or alive).

He became the first and most wanted man in every country of the magical world. That meant one thing: He was alone and no official body would help him.

He tried to close himself in his safe houses, but it was in vain. He was found very quickly in a matter of days, even after putting all the protections he knew. And the wards didn't last enough before a continuous attack with only him to recharge them. At least he could take all the supplies he had put in them with him.

He also tried to hide in the muggle world, but his face was in the news a lot, so he was easily recognized and truth be told he didn't know a lot of magic to disguise himself. The best he could do was to change his hair and eyes color (which was, to his amazement, enough to fool most wizards) that didn't last that long; and to throw muggle repelling charms. This one was useful to sleep in hotels or steal when he needed it; after all it was the safest way to eat when he couldn't work nor trade his galleons to another currency.

The only thing he could do was travel without stopping and looking for information. To be precise he wanted information that would help him to avoid being tracked and to stop whatever they were using.

He got a multiple-compartment trunk with a lot of powerful wards (to which he added more as he learned them). It has a little apartment where he could sleep, because he discovered that when he was inside it took longer to be tracked.

He gathered every book about every possible subject he could get his hands onto; and he really was surprised and fascinated with Magical Runes. It was astounding how easily he could grasp the concept and their meanings… even without a teacher explaining the more difficult concepts that books didn't explain that well! It was almost as if he had already studied them before! It was the first subject that he truly was good at, or at least apart from Defense against the Dark Arts. However DCAO had never truly called to him. It had been (and still was) a mere need, no something he would practice or study only to learn more. With Runes he could see himself studying them even without his actual needs.

With his new knowledge he added a lot of wards to his trunks and improved the existing ones to the point that every time he got inside it should be impossible to track him, whatever the method the wizarding world was using (which seemed too perfect, and that didn't make any sense to him, because he had scanned himself and all his possessions a lot of times without finding anything that they could be used).

His journey took him to the lands of the Rising Sun, where his so unfavorable fate wanted him to find an old abandoned shrine full of parchments and old volumes covered in dust. An enormous treasure. Harry used some spells to stop and even undo their deteriorated state before adding them to his library. What problem did he found? He could not understand the language they were written in.

The problem persisted until he found a solution some weeks later: to add the right runes to a lens; so the lens would let him understand every written word in any language seen using it. And one he did it, he read, read and read.

Apparently the shrine was once the main refuge of an old order whose members worked as mercenaries. Each member of this fraternity followed a strict code based on their honor and morality. Common people only knew of them as ninjas, one of the last real branches before the significance of why they were needed was lost.

This Order was special in one thing: every member had a special power, what they called 'the Force' (although Harry supposed they were muggleborn wizards (and witches); and without any formal instruction they explored their powers in a different way). They had learned to use this 'Force' to improve their abilities very fast, among other things.

And what happened to them? They died off. Why? Because of jealously and rumors. A lot of people were jealous of their powers; and after they were rejected when they sought to join, their mentality was: "If I cannot have it, no one else will". They started rumors among the others "normal" fraternities about how this one killed people to rob them of their knowledge and to become stronger faster. Before they could deny it they already became the bad guys and were persecuted.

Harry kept reading and classifying the information and discovered that there was some true to that rumors, but it was not what it seemed. There were some rituals, true; and even there were some which could be used to copy specific knowledge from others, however they didn't kill anyone.

When Harry finished classifying everything he only found two rituals with any death involved. The first required animal death (which once one read everything about it was not as bad as it sounded); and the second required a voluntary person on his deathbed, but the ritual didn't kill him/her.

He began to learn and practice the more basic skills described. Theses technique consisted of using his own magic to break the physical limits his body has. After repeating this enough times, his body limits would get slightly higher and even without magic he could run faster, hit harder, jump higher, get tired slower, to perceive better with all his senses… The scrolls mentioned how, after years of doing this, some of the members could do impossible things like running 100 m. in 1 second, jumping impossible high or incredible long, hearing a whispered conversation among the crowd, hitting the ground with one finger and causing minor earthquakes, to be hit by a falling tree and not been affected…

Thanks to this training in a few months and with his magic help he managed to correct his eyes so he could see normal without his glasses; one of the things that had frustrated him since he was little and before he got used to it.

He carried on moving from one place to another and travelling the world, although he kept himself near deserted places to exercise without witnesses. He didn't stop with his magical studies, especially Runes; however he was going on slower.

Finally the best moment (according to the scrolls, which as he fully read them he also was manually copying them to books in English and with his own annotations) to start with some of the rituals came.

And that's what he did. He started with one that granted him a 'second mind'. The scroll described it as the ability to think like two different person. Not two personalities like in a M.P.D; more like a hive mind where the user has two minds equals in every way to use separately and at the same time are connected and can work as one. For example, Harry could use it to read two books at the same time of different subjects without mixing them, one mind on each book and neither distracting the other. And this ability, once acquired through the ritual, could be activated and deactivated at will, because not only it was magic consuming but also at first it would feel very funny.

The next one he tried was about animagic, or at least that time's concept. The user could earn animal features after defeating and killing a creature. First, the user started the ritual choosing what king of animal he wanted, which at the time the scroll was written the options were: 'earth', 'water', 'air' and 'fire'. This would select the most compatible animal from the selected category and summon a hybrid version of an human and such creature (like a werewolf). If there wasn't a compatible animal from that category then the ritual would only summon a normal animal and at the end the features earned would be minor. Then the user would have to fight and defeat or kill the summoning and finish the last part of the ritual over the corpse.

The ritual could be repeated a few times, although there has to be a break of over a year between them. It could be possible to summon different creatures of the same category, however it was possible for the same animal to appear and in that case the user only would gain minor improvements of what he already had, a change of coloration…

In the scroll there was also some mention to other possible categories that were experimented on, however almost always they failed, so there were not included. At reading this Harry thought that at that time this Order didn't have enough knowledge about all the ritual components and ingredients; and after researching his runes, potions, plants and astronomy books (the subjects more related to the ritual, because he wasn't going to do it without being sure it was safe), he not only learned why it worked as it did, but also how to improve it somewhat.

When he tried it for the first time, he summoned an earth animal. A panther appeared, or at least the creature was panther like. Like the scroll had said, it was like a werewolf, half human, half animal; with some of the features Harry would gain.

Wounded after a hard fight, he managed to kill it; so he gained the ability to transform. Not only to a panther, but also to that hybrid state or only partially, like just the eyes or the tail.

The next ritual was about acquiring knowledge from others. The user could choose one subject or topic from the selected person and would acquire everything he knew without any personal experiences interfering. There were two ways of doing it; it depended on the 'victim' being willing or not. If done well, the 'unwilling victim' wouldn't find out; however once done it could not be repeated on him/her. That didn't happen on a volunteer. The other problem was that the body/mind of the user could not stand the stress of repeating it more than once or twice every year, with the exception of someone who hadn't done it in a long, long time. In any case the user always should wait a time before doing it again. The only way around this was if the user had done the 'second mind ritual' before. The reason was that with 'two minds' the user could put up with twice the usual number. The waiting time, however, was the same.

When choosing the topic, one had to think very carefully exactly what he wanted; because the more general it was, the more magic consuming it became and if the user didn't have enough magic, the more abstract the knowledge was. For example, if the chosen subject was 'Potions'; everything the victim knew about it would pass to the user perfectly as if he learned it himself without any setbacks. Everything that was related in anyway (like Herbology related plants for some of the ingredients or Astronomy related events for durations and effects) would be learned as well, but not as well. The ritual would try to take more magic from the user to correct this, however if he didn't have enough it would become almost abstract and very specific (the user wouldn't know the explanations behind).

If the topic was very general, like 'everything the victim know about magic' or 'everything about his own life'; it would require an enormous amount of magic from the user to learn it perfectly. But the most probable result was to only learn a summary (like reading only the summary of a book or the argument of a film but not any specific scenes or conversations). For example, if the victim knew how to play the piano the user would know that the victim could play the piano, but the user couldn't play.

Harry did the ritual to improve and widen his magical knowledge. He looked for the best masters and authorities on every subject he could: Charms, Transfiguration, Runes, Arithmancy, Defense, Potions, Herbology…

At first he only thought about searching the Runes and Wards Masters; however one night he had an odd dream where he talked to Sirius. He told him to read a certain scroll in the ritual section that he hadn't opened yet, and if he decided on doing it, he should gather all the knowledge he could. When he woke up he was confused because it had been too real, so he checked it. He found the mentioned scroll and to his surprise it described the ritual to open a portal to another world. A world with the features the user asked for. Of course it wasn't an easy process.

But now he had a goal in mind: going to a place where nobody could follow him, a place where nobody knew him, where he could start anew. This gave him hope for the first time since Voldemort's death, and made him more determined than ever. So following Sirius advice he devoted his time to gather knowledge.

First he tracked down the best two Rune Masters of the world and focused on learning everything they knew about 'Runes and languages'. Now he could speak a few languages, very useful for those interested in the different Runes of different magical countries. This let him not only obtain an unofficial mastery on the subject; but also all the little tricks and modifications they got through personal experiences and didn't appear in any book nor they would teach anybody. What he hadn't expected was two things: tricks to learn very, very fast any new language; and wards, a lot of knowledge about wards that include a lot that didn't use runes.

Of course later he thought that the reason of this was that it was somewhat related (to understand the runes wards you needed to understand the differences with other kinds) and it explained why he was so tired after finishing it, more tired than he thought he would be.

After that Harry repeated the ritual with a Transfiguration Master, but he tried to focus on 'Magic'. Not only he ended with magical exhaustion (just as well he had a potion for that situation), however he also learnt very little. He now knew a lot of new spells and what they did, but he couldn't cast them like he should if the ritual was well done.

He learnt from his lesson and was more specific when he tried again with another Transfiguration Master. Then he went for some Potions Masters, Herbology experts and also a Charms Master before stopping altogether.

He felt as his head was about to explode, so he took this as a warning: He was at his limit for the moment.

So for the next weeks he had to rest. And at the same time he put what he learned to good use: To start with he improved his trunk's wards to the point that he could not be found inside any longer (and he had tested them to make sure). He also put some Runes in his clothes to create a lesser effect so it would take longer to locate him.

Also he put more though about the method used to track him down, and with all the knowledge he gained he figured the most probable reason was blood-based magic; because although it was considered 'dark' by the Wizarding ministries, it worked in a different way. Blood from a magical-being radiated tiny bits of magic that were ignored when compared to magic radiated by the day-to-day spells. Normal wards contained and absorbed the magic radiated from normal casting; however they usually ignored the ones coming from the blood (Imagine a radio, the wards are stopping anyone of receiving from a particular radio station, but aren't stopping others because they are in another wavelength). This was something that he had corrected on the trunk's wards. But how could that be? He didn't remember giving away ever any blood, and without a sample it was impossible for them to know what 'wavelength' had to look for.

To know more he prepared a trap for his 'hunters'. To his surprise Ron was not one of them this time. He knocked them down and used some strong compulsion charms (learnt from the Charms Master) to make them tell the truth before erasing their memories. They told him how Dumbledore built a special device to locate him anywhere using his blood when he was a baby, and now the Ministry was using it. Harry responded that it was impossible because outside the body the magic from the sample would dissipate in a few years. It couldn't have lasted so long. The hunters' answer was that this device was supposed to work until he died, like last time.

After letting them go (without their memories) Harry was left thinking inside his trunk. The device was the one Dumbledore left Ronald in his will and had used to locate him after he left. When he Voldemort 'killed' him it had stopped working; so Ron had sold it to the Ministry. The Unspeakables were the ones to find how it worked and that it needed a new sample of his blood; sample that they got when they found him for the first time and wounded him. They had tried to replicate the device but none of the copies were as good as the original.

It was clear what he had to do: to locate and destroy the device (and its copies). Surprisingly enough he found the task quite easy. He prepared another trap to ask for information about the 'hunters' and learned enough to enact his plan: First he used more compulsion charms to convince them of bringing different persons in their teams each time, and for the next month he used more traps to capture the teams until everyone but Ronald and a couple of others (who were so lazy that unless the signal they received from him was stronger they were not going to show) was caught.

To each one of them he put a very strong compulsion charm to do, everybody at the same time, their mission: to locate and destroy every tracker without anyone being the wiser if possible. Of course a compulsion charm was not the Imperius curse, so it was easier to fight. However one of the things he had learned from the runes masters and the wards was that sometimes you shouldn't fight an invader, it was easier to make him think that he shouldn't fight you (like the muggle-repelling wards, which make people think they had more important things to do). So he applied this idea to the compulsion charms and make them think that they wanted to destroy the trackers, the notes of how to make them (including the Unspeakable's memories) and his blood so they could have more free time instead of traveling and coming back with nothing almost everyday.

It required a bit of manipulation so they thought it was their idea and everyone of them agreed with the plan… and voilà. 2 weeks later it was done. For the first time in years Harry was free to go to public places for extended periods of time, or so he thought until he was recognized and persecuted in Italy for a few hours by the muggle police a week later.

After escaping he hit himself for thinking that only without the trackers he was safe. He still was a "wide world criminal". He went back to using runes in his clothes to be "an uninteresting person that wasn't worth to look at for". With that an another pair of enchantments he managed to become almost completely anonymous.

He thought about creating a new identity; settling down and trying again to live a peaceful life in the muggle world. It was very tempting, but he had already tried that. He doubted the magic world would stop seeking him, or at least for now. True, he now could hide himself a lot better. However no defense was perfect; and without any allies he didn't think he could last forever. And what kind of live was that? No, the best plan was to start anew elsewhere where he would not be followed.

So he went on. He had an easier time finding new subjects for the "knowledge ritual"; and while he still could not repeat it for now at least he had time to choose and prepare better. Three months later he had so many good choices that it would take him too many years, something he didn't want. He tried to modify the ritual to correct the waiting time, but he was not successful.

In the end the best thing he could do was to create a new ritual very similar. The copied knowledge was used to create a magical book that explained said subject very clearly with all the subject experiences as practical examples. The main disadvantage was that the subject experience was lost. The user could study the book, but the skills learned from it wouldn't be as if he had done them in the past like in the other ritual, only mere theoretical knowledge. To make up for it he managed to remove the restriction of 'only once for subject'. Years later he'd create another ritual to combine books about similar subjects creating better versions that were less subjective.

Harry used this 'book ritual' to gather knowledge about everything he thought about (including the subjects he already knew): Runes, Transfiguration, Charms, Enchantments, Magical Defense, Magical Offense, Herbology, Potions, Alchemy, Ward Creation, Ward Breaking, Curse Breaking, Dark Arts, Light Arts, Magical Astronomy, Legeremancy, Occlumency, Magical Medicine, Arithmancy, Magical Animals, Magical Objects… and that only in the Wizarding World.

He also went round the muggle world buying and/or copying books and doing the ritual to gather about: Math, Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Technology, Economy, Politics, business studies, business administration, Metallurgy, Philosophy, Trade, Government, Diplomacy, Muggle Medicines, Cookery (of course), Survival, Driving, Mechanics, Martial Arts, Weapon Use, Weapon Defense, Weapon Creation, Computer Programming, Psychology, Electricity, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence… and about everything he could think of. He even asked a lot of people with the excuse of a survey and got more ideas. One of those ideas make him go and copy the Vatican Library.

When he could, he repeated the other ritual to acquire more practical knowledge; like wilderness survival, martial arts, awareness, seduction, etc. It was a pity he could not do the ritual for everything, because he had learned some things that usually didn't appear in books, like the fact that the most important thing when learning martial arts was balance. He was already thinking about ways to obtain the knowledge from the books directly without reading thanks to Runes… A future project.

His next idea to avoid the 'waiting time' issue of the ritual was altering time (obviously). His initial goal was that whenever he entered his trunk, time would stop outside and he could stay inside years if he wanted without aging at all. And, once he left, time would resume as normal on the outside world.

In the end, the best he achieved, using his new specialty (Runes), was a single room in one of the compartments of his trunk where the time conversion was of ½, meaning 1 hour passing outside equaled 2 hours inside. The main obstacle he had found was that the magic necessary was very energy consuming. Before each use he had to charge the Runes with his own power, and it required quite a lot to function properly. He simply didn't have enough magic to affect more than 90 m3 of space or to increase the conversion more than the 1/2, also it would only work for a few hours (outside time); anything more and the magic failed or he ended up with magical exhaustion (and he had tried and tried different combinations). At least the 'no aging' rule worked.

He had figured out a version without this 'no aging' rule that worked better. Using the same room and with the same time conversion, he could charge the runes so the magic would last a few days. Useful if he wanted to spend days researching or reading, but it wouldn't let him follow his usual training regime.

He paused the project for the moment and used the first version to sleep. This way his mind and body could recover 'faster' to repeat the ritual. It also helped to train his magic, his magical reserves were growing faster after spending that much magic everyday; and it was a lot of less time consuming than casting spells without stop until he achieved the same result.

A year later Fate threw him a bone when Harry met an lonely old man who was very ill and didn't have a lot of time left. Harry didn't know what made him be honest, but he ended up telling him about his life, his troubles and his plans. When he finished he felt a lot better, like he had just pulled a nail out of himself. The old mind was very open-minded and believed him. He encourage him to go on and to never give up.

One thing led to another and the old man volunteer to be the subject of the last 'training ritual' Harry still hadn't done but wanted to (there were others, of course; but were not that useful at the moment or had secondary effects which took a lot of time and training to overcome). This ritual (as explained before) let the user gain all the subject's abilities, knowledge and skills without any drawbacks. That was the big difference between a willing and an unwilling subject. And why the subject had to be in his deathbed? Because every time the members of the Order had tried with younger subjects it failed.

Once the ritual was done Harry was surprised. The old man had truly lived a long life full of dangers and adventures. As he saw him draw his last breath, he thought about the legacy he had just received. The old man had been an spy, a very good one who ended been betrayed by his own government. He had escaped and hide himself, however he regretted never having the chance to form a family and having children to teach his own skills.

Harry thanked the now gone elderly man and left thinking in all the new abilities he had: expert infiltration, expert negotiation, expert concealment, military training (which included driving a big variety of vehicles (ground, air and sea), how to use a lot of different weapons, both bladed weapons and firearms, different martial arts, etc.); how to read people; to recognize scum, police and so; how to dress and talk to people with charisma (something he lacked because of his forced isolated childhood)…

And that was without including knowledge about the world, about Law, about Governments, contacts, secret locations, secret projects…

It was truly a present like no other. One that made Harry become a more dangerous man against any enemy, muggle or magical.

For a time he practiced his new skills while searching for more knowledge to copy. He went through libraries, schools, universities, investigations centers, etc.; copying one of every book (or material) and doing the 'book ritual' to almost every teacher, scientific and investigator he found about every possible subject they specialized in. He also started to gather machine maps that explained how to build machines, like the ones needed to obtain refined metals or like the one that used said metals to built vehicles, refrigerators and so.

He also learned how to write computer programs and sought the best world hackers to use them as subjects of the 'knowledge ritual'. Thanks to magic he built a PC that worked on magic instead of electrical power using runes to generate the needed electricity. The problem with this was that as he hadn't found a way to store energy, he had to charge it every few hours.

The computer let him gather and save a lot of other things like music, films and so. Although it was not a priority, that didn't mean he didn't want to have some when he left.

He also put compulsion spells on the hackers so they help him in the gathering. From little things like searching and copying for him compilations of the best songs and films, to locate and help him infiltrate in every Government building with secret investigations and information.

With the hackers help, the old man skills as a spy and his magic; he had an almost easy time infiltrating. Or at least after the first 5 tries; because although he managed to get in and out without almost any problems, he always put off traps and ended been discovered.

To resolve this problem he put together a special suit full of special runes that were constantly fed with his magic. The fabric was an idea he got after seeing the process used to build fibreglass. He put together a lot of different materials: steel, silver, gold, klevar, glass, cloth, cotton, leather, quartz and diamond. He used his magic to generate a fire hot enough to melt them all together without burning nor being destroyed. He put the mixture in a special conjured cast that gave it thread shape. He searched for a experienced clothes designer and used the 'ritual knowledge' to learn from how to put it up together himself (including a pair of boots). One he finished he draw the runes all over it.

It consisted in a pair of boots, a pair of thick black socks, dark grey jeans, a black t-shirt, a pair of dark grey gloves, a dark grey hoody (with hood big enough to cover his eyes and nose) and a thin scarf big enough to put up and cover half his face (everything under the hood). The remaining thread was used to sew another t-shirt and a pair of underpants, however he didn't have enough.

Different parts had different runes and spells. For example: he put in the scarf one to act as an air filter and another to alter his voice. In the hood of the hoody he put another air filter, something to see through the cloth including a light filter (after he was blinded once by flash grenades) and even a sound dampener to filter sounds attacks. In the gloves there was a modification of the usual "Notice-me-not" charm: a "Don't-notice-my-touch" (Do I really need to explain what does it do?). For the boots he had a new idea, something that he called the "Don't-touch-me" runes. It didn't let anything but air to touch the boots. The consequence of this was that when walking the boots were 1mm above any floor, leaving no trace, no footprint… and without activating mines. He would still sink into water, mud and so; but the boots would remain clean.

There were also common runes and spells for every part: for comfort, temperature regulation, toughness, auto-wash, auto-repair, silence (so he was not detected by sound), notice-me-not and I'm-not-interesting (invisibility was not an option with runes), energy absorption (it would detect attacks and absorb all possible energy) like magic, fire (explosions), electricity (lighting) or kinetic. He was especially interested in stopping and absorbing kinetic energy because every object in movement had that energy, including bullets. After absorbing this energy all that remained was the force provided by the object's own weight. A fist still hurt because of the body's weight behind it; or a sword could still cut (if we don't include the other protections), but it was more difficult. A piano falling from a 11th floor? It would only feel like it had been put just above him; however his weight was big enough to hurt him, although not as much as normal. And what about a bullet, which is small and light? Yes, this meant that the suit was bulletproof. He was immune to things like that (for example to shrapnel shells and fragmentation grenades).

Thank to this suit he had an easier time getting in and out of heavily defended facilities and getting copies of books, documents (about things like space travel or nuclear energy), secret investigations, blueprints and even some materials and weapons.

As he didn't know what kind of world the ritual he planned on doing would take him, he wanted to be prepared and be able to support himself. So he started a new project in one of the empty compartments of the trunk: a farm.

In the past wizards invented a lot of spells to make easier the farm work. However slowly the magical governments started enormous ones managed by house elves, which was a lot cheaper. With time that had become a monopoly. Any other official food distributor was illegal. Only private farms were legit and only if they were owned by purebloods, most of whom thought they were above that labor or used their own house elves. Nowadays few wizards remembered the old spells used in farms.

Harry, while traveling, had visited the few poor purebloods who still had their own. They didn't know a lot of 'farm' magic (in fact the most common was an ecstasy spell so they were always as fresh as the first day), but different countries used different spells for different needs (for example: countries with very bad weather specialized in automatic pick-up spells; or countries with very little fertile soil so they needed spells to keep the soil fertile without consequences).

He reunited a lot of them and modified them so the spells were managed by runes he had to charge one per month (at least at the beginning when there wasn't a lot yet). He knew he was not powerful enough to made it too big; so until he found another energy source he put just the basics: he recollected and put on ecstasy seeds from every possible useful plant (like cocoa, he couldn't leave behind chocolate after all) and only planted some very basics vegetables and fruits to feed him and the animals he also brought (like cows, rabbits, pigs, sheep, hens and roosters…). And of course artificial light, air renewal, rain…

Every product that was ready to consume was automatically put on ecstasy and appeared in the kitchen of his apartment inside the trunk. The most common thing at the beginning were the eggs and some of the rabbits when they began to be too numerous.

Although he had some ideas for the energy source, that had to wait for now. When he resolved that problem he would begin to also recollect magical plants, needed for potions ingredients. He would need to think what to do about magical creatures. Most of them could not be controlled by magic, so to add them to the farm was very dangerous.

Before he knew it 6 years had passed since Voldemort's death, 5 since the first time he was attacked (in real time. Thanks to his time manipulation he had lived about 1 additional year without aging). Now a young black-haired man was walking through Melbourne's streets, in Australia; and planning his next and very dangerous move: infiltrate every Magical Ministry of the world, every Magical School and every house of important and rich Magical people. Now that he had (or at least he thought he had) a copy of all muggle knowledge and the materials to build about anything in the future in his own trunk; it was time to finish gathering magical knowledge. He supposed it would be more difficult because they could detect his magic; however he had continued studying magic and had learned new tricks he hoped would help in this task.

His first target was the Australian Ministry. It was the more isolated and small magical community of the world, so it would be easier (he hoped). What's more, they were so isolated from the rest communities that they had special international portkeys for diplomats. And the Minister needed his own copies of them, which he had found out he liked to used a lot to enjoy other countries… entertainment facilities.

Fate (or God) act in odd ways, and this time made Harry pass next to an apartment complex where he noticed (with the senses he had been training to pick up magic emissions from wards and alike) the sudden apparition of a anti-muggles field. He went on walking, or at least until he heard a female shout from there that everybody else ignore because of the magical field. He couldn't let it go and went to see what was happening.

It took him by surprise seeing the two persons he wanted to see the least: Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley. The first one was hurt and petrified. The second one had a sadist smile and looked like he was about to rape her. While he disrobed himself he insulted her, saying things like: 'Potter's bitch, you are going to receive what you deserve for not doing what we told you like the mudblood whore you are and instead leaving. Did you really think we wouldn't find you?'

With Ron there were 2 more people that Harry recognized as his "hunter's teammates". They watched with lecherous smiles and their wands still in their hands. It seemed they were the one to put the wards, because he very much doubted Ron knew how to do it. One look to the room was enough to see the signs of a magical battle: 3 vs. 1.

One didn't need to be a genius to say Harry was not going to let it happen. He covered his face with the hood and the scarf; deactivated the 'Notice-me-not' effect of his suit and attacked them from behind. Both spectators went down after being hit in the neck.

This caused a noise the redhead heard and turned around. At seeing the intruder he tried to pick his wand from his half-down trousers. However he was not fast enough.

Harry approached him with a speed that surprised the fool and with the strength gained in his training he lifted him by his neck.

- You… will… pa… -Weasley tried to say but he found it was getting moredificult to breathe.

- You have sunk so low -said the black-haired, his voice filtered and altered by the scarf runes-. You don't how much I want to kill you…

Ron went pale at hearing those words and his stammers became pleas that were silenced when Harry tightened his hold.

His blood was boiling before what he had just seen. One part of him wanted to kill him. It was quite easy. He just needed to squeeze a little more. Very easy, very tempting…

'Free yourself from your hate' -a woman voice resounded in his mind.

If it wasn't for the strong emotions he was feeling at the moment; Harry would have laughed after hearing this voice who just sounded a lot like one of those Star Wars catchphrases.

'My hate it's what brought me here' -a little voice of Harry conscience thought-. 'Without it I would have given up under the pressure.'

'It was your hope, and not your hate, what brought you here' -answered the female voice-. 'That hate is poisoning you and if you don't let it go you'll be unable of achieving that peace and new life you wish for so much. Free yourself, let it go. You still have time.'

'How do you expect for me to not hate him? He once was my friend. And look at what he had become.'

'It's natural to be angry. It's natural to feel rage. But don't let it turn into hatred. Turn your back on it. Feel the rage, but don't let it control you. Only then you will heal the wounds of your memories and the nightmares that torment you still. Don't let your hatred stop you from starting the new life you have fought the last 5 years for. If you don't do it, you will never be able of leaving your past behind.'

Slowly Harry was calming down and after a time he relaxed. He still was angry, but didn't have that need of killing him anymore. He threw him to the floor and with his magic left him unconscious.

'You have done well' -the voice told him, although now it sounded weaker, like it was leaving-. 'Remember I'll always be with you, my son.'

'Mum…'

Harry closed his eyes and thanked her mentally, feeling a lot better. He depetrified the girl, who was terrified and crying by what had been about to happen.

- You should leave -told her the hooded man-. I'll take care of them, however more people could come. And with how the things are nowadays at the Magical World they would be against you. Maybe to your parents' home…

- I… can't. They were murdered 6 months ago… -was the still sobbing girl's answer.

Harry looked at her without knowing what to do or say; so he just spent the next minutes using compulsion spells on the 3 fallen men so they wouldn't remember the incident, didn't want to think or search on any of them and to stop them from trying to rape anybody else.

- I have done what I could. It's time for me to leave. You should do the same…

- NO! -exclaimed the girl and to Harry's surprise she hugged his chest-. Please, don't go! Don't leave me alone…!

- We cannot stay here any longer -answered the nervous black-haired. His clothes were doing a good job and were stopping her from recognize him.

- Take me with you, please; anywhere. But don't leave me alone.

He had doubts that that was the best option, however his pity for her won and he accepted. After all and from what little he knew of psychology, after a traumatic experience the one she would feel safer with was her rescuer. He sighed and help her to gather her possessions (including an incredible large amount of books, even some that Harry didn't have).

Harry took her to his base in the city: a motel's room heavily protected by wards he had placed and where he kept his trunk. Of the seven compartments only one remained almost empty: the one he used as gym. Two were used for storage of materials, one as the library, one for his experiments, one for the apartment and one for the farm. The apartment inside had been somewhat improved, having now 2 bathrooms, 2 bedrooms (one with the time runes), a living room where he had the computer (isolated from the outside), a television (only useful for recorded things and movies), a pair of comfortable sofas and a bookcase full of fantasy books; a kitchen and a laundry room. There were magic absorption runes in every room so no ambient magic destroyed the electric components. These powered other runes that keep everything clean. What ambient magic remained was transferred to the farm runes.

Once inside he took her to the living room. He told her he was going to prepare her a hot drink to calm her. However she was so afraid of being alone that he had to take her with him to the kitchen. After a hot tea with a strong calming potion and another to sleep without dreaming, she fell asleep almost immediately. He carried her to the normal bedroom (the one without the time runes) and put her in the bed.

Next morning Hermione awoke feeling calmer. She'd never have believed Ron would try to do something like this. She felt furious, weak and broken. She really regretted having turned her back on her heart. And now she didn't know what to do. She had no goal in life. Her parents had died months ago when the 'hunters' appeared for the first time looking for any clue of the Dark Lord Harry Potter, who had avoided them for too much time. She had cried for what she had thought an accident (her parents' death); but the day before Ronald had confessed being the responsible of their death.

What was going to happen to her now? She couldn't go back to an anonymous life. They would keep looking for her and they would probably find her (again). She was not ignorant of the happenings of the Magical World and knew that there was not a safe place at the moment… She had no place to go, nor anything to fight for.

If the hooded man hadn't been there… And now she has in his place. She had much to thank him for. She owed him one, and had to pay him back. She needed to do something for him, anything. She needed… him to give her a goal, something that didn't let her to go down and give up. Perhaps this way she would have enough time to accept what had happened. She still felt somewhat afraid and unsafe. She couldn't stand to be alone now, and the thought of being with the one who save her make her feel calmer.

She got up and left the room. She entered the living room, where he found the hooded man reading, already up. He still had his face covered by a hood and a very thin scarf.

- Good morning –she greeted him, shyly.

- Do you feel better? –he asked without turning around nor averting his eyes of the book.

- Yes. Thanks… for yesterday… and for not leaving me alone.

- You just underwent a traumatic experience. I can understand you feeling safer only next to the one who rescued you. Are you hungry?

- A little.

The hooded man got up from the sofa and led her to the kitchen, where he prepared her something. For himself he just got some tea and sat down to keep her company.

- Is there any reason why you still keep your face covered? –Hermione suddenly asked, breaking the silence.

- It's better this way. You'll leave soon and we won't see each other again.

- I don't have anywhere to go. That was not the first time they attacked me. They found me for the first time 6 months ago. I've already eluded them three times; however they keep finding me even after my attempts of living anonymously between muggles. I… I don't know what to do with my life.

Harry kept himself quiet, only listening to the depressed girl.

- That's way I want to help you. I don't know who you are, but I want to help you and pay you back. Please, let me stay with you and help you in anyway. I don't have anything to fight for. I have lost everything. Give me a goal, a reason to not give up and keep living –she whispered with her eyes full of tears.

He didn't say anything for a while. He had to think about it. Although at the end of an arduous mental battle, he accepted. He didn't have the heart to throw her away, even if he wanted to start anew without her.

- There'll be rules you'll have to follow if you want to remain here.

Hermione nodded very quickly.

- The first and most important one: What I do or say is secret and you shan't tell anyone. It doesn't matter if my actions are illegal or you find them unethical. I don't care. To help me in my goals requires keeping them secret. You shall swear an unbreakable oath to that effect. Are you sure of this?

The young woman was silent for a moment before nodding again, sure of her decision.

Harry told her the rest of the rules and made her swear the oath.

During the next weeks Harry would attack, as planned, each Magical Ministry; where he copied every bit of knowledge (it didn't matter if it was from books or from persons and he had to use the 'book ritual'). He did the same to investigator homes, the schools, old families' houses and everyplace he thought of. Maybe 'attack' wasn't the right word; because he got in and out without anyone noticing. His wards, runes and curse-breaker knowledge and observation skills made it very easy not being detected by their magic; and wizards depended on their wards and magical alarms to detect intruders.

Hermione dedicated herself to 'sort' the compartment library the 'hooded man' had obtained (or at least everything but the scrolls he obtained from the monastery, which he moved to his room and put under wards). She didn't ask about it origins, she really didn't care. And while she sorted everything she also had to research for an alternative magical source and ways to contain it. Both projects cheered her up; not only because it was something she liked, also because it helped her to clear her head and accept what had happened.

Many times she talked to the hooded man in the evenings, the only time he ate with her and kept her company; which helped her vent. He never said anything, he just listened to.

The only thing he said about himself was that he had left the Magical World like so many muggleborns had done, not wanting to become the working class and having shit jobs. However in his case he was 'attacked' by his 'comments' and to the purebloods shame, they were easily defeated. Such insult couldn't pass unpunished, so he became a target. The more he eluded them, the more they sought him. They made it so he couldn't find a safe place and until he improved his runes and wards knowledge, he didn't manage to take a break. And that was how his knowledge's quest had started.

He also showed her the 'farm' compartment, leaving her speechless. Since he had started it he had improved the control runes, and as his power increased, he continued to add new runes to extend the farm and simulate more things, like the seasons (something the plants and animals needed). He had designed the runes in a way that made them connected to a series of keystones. These keystones provided the power the runes needed, and also showed a list of every rune connected to that particular keystone and their condition (like a log). Any discrepancies would be noted in a scroll each had.

Also they were interconnected, so if one lost power it could get it from the others. Also Harry only needed to charge one to charge all of them; this let him keep a special one in his room. This one showed the other keystones' state, so if there was any problem he knew which one he had to see to know which rune was causing it.

Hermione was amazed with the runes. They were showing that he had an incredible ability and skill that even experts would envy; because the talent and the dedication one had to put to use them so creatively and subtly… nobody could do it with just pure knowledge.

Months later, when Harry began to run of new places to look for new materials, he started to dedicate himself to the rest of the monastery scrolls. He carefully read everything about the ritual to open a gateway to a new world. The ritual worked, because one of the first testers had come back to tell them about the success. The hardest part was that it was needed a lot of energy to generate the gateway; energy that even a million wizards didn't have.

Hermione hadn't found any magical energy source. The best she got was a way to store it within crystals: rubies, sapphires, emeralds, diamond… the bigger and the purer, the more magical energy they could handle without breaking. Harry had thanked her and added to his suit some emeralds in key places as a precaution for when he exhausted himself so the runes of his clothes kept working.

The section of the ritual that he was finding hard to understand was:

'_Can't you see?_

_Seven energies you need._

_Air, but also Sky._

_Water, but also Life._

_Fire, but also Death._

_All to purify Earth.'_

However after a time he found the answer in one of the scrolls he had thought of 'not useful' when he first found them and was classifying them.

This scroll was a classification of the natural energies (at the time). What he discovered, now that he carefully read it and not only looked over it, was also two others rituals. One was used to locate a natural place were the energy you needed was. The other created a crystal containing an enormous amount of said energy, leaving the place almost empty of it (only enough to regenerate). The seven energies he needed to open the gateway were: fire, water, air, earth, sky, life and death.

He finally told Hermione about his ultimate goal and asked for her help in the 'source crystals' creation. She, once again, was left speechless; and to believe it possible she had to read herself the ritual scroll and the crystals scroll. Of course even before reading it and believing she had accepted to give him a hand.

This project scared her a bit. Not because she thought it was dangerous, but because in the last months (almost a year) she had felt better helping him. She felt useful for the first time since Harry's departure. What would she do when the hooded man left? Would she ask to let her follow him? She didn't know. On the other this project made her feel very alive. It was like discovering that she was a witch again, a new world of possibilities ahead.

With her help, Harry started to locate and create the crystals. If you understood how the energies worked, then you'd know that there were plenty of locations that were their sources; but for the gateway to work it wasn't enough. It was needed an extremely enormous energy source. This source was the one the 'location ritual' searched.

For example, to create a fire source crystal the best location was a volcano (and only at the beginning of the eruption). However the crystal power was proportional to the strength of the eruption. The 'location ritual' gave Harry 17 possible volcanoes around the world, like the Vesuvius in Italy or the Teide, in Spain. Hermione theorized that the strength was proportional to the time between eruptions; and these 17 were actually inactive and had been for the last 2000 years at the very least.

The chosen volcano had to be forced to erupt before attempting the ritual; and the best way to do it and at the same time to give them additional strength, was releasing a smaller 'fire source crystal' in them. It required a bit of an effort and a lot of cooler charms for Hermione, but they managed it.

Of course that wasn't the only problem they had. The energy released for the big one was so powerful that the ritual attempt to convert them in a source crystal was detected by other wizards and the Magical Ministry of the region sent people to investigate and stop it. After a pair of failed attempts they had to learn how to mask the ritual magical signature to make it seem part of the volcano eruption.

Harry accumulated a few smaller fire source crystals and started some experiments with them, trying to connect them to a set of test runes that would use it as a power source. To his dismay most of them failed. The fire energy was too powerful and explosive to tap into in most cases. He really was thankful that he made his clothes fire and explosion resistant.

Hermione was the one who suggested he tried with runes whose effect was more compatible with fire characteristics, like warming, destroying and so.

He did so and got better results. When he was sure it was safe and after creating a safeguard, he began to modify some his runes to run on some fire source crystals. The ones that worked was: the water warming sets, the ones powering the oven, the stove, the microwave…, some of the defensive wards (the more aggressive ones) and the farm runes controlling the temperature.

He also tried it to power the times runes set (the ones without the no-aging rule) he had created. The poor clock he used to test them told him it was not a good idea (BOOM).

He thought of using a bigger fire source crystal to create an artificial sun for the farm, but in the end he decided to wait until he had acquired the others source crystals before attempting something so complicated.

For the water energy any place where the water showed his might was enough, like a waterfall. Of course if you were looking for a large one you needed to seek sources more powerful; like tsunamis, floods, underwater earthquakes or strong sea storms. The 'location ritual' guided Harry to the middle of the sea, where the last one usually happened a lot. One smaller water source crystal later and the strength of the waves was so big that it was very hard to be stable enough (even with magic) to finish the ritual.

His experiments with the test runes were a lot better that with the fire source (none exploded in his face). Although most of them worked just fine, the less compatible ones needed to absorb more energy of what should be needed. At the end the sets he decided to use them as energy source were: the cooler runes of the rooms and the fridge, the water generation ones, the ones controlling the washing machine… and some of the most tame defensive wards.

To his surprise this time the time runes set worked perfectly with the water source crystal giving it power. That remind him of a quote he heard once when investigating time magic: _"A river goes fast and with strength in one direction. You'll find that time is not like that. Time is like the sea, in the middle of the storm."_ He had to laugh after that. Of course a water source crystal, obtained in the middle of a storm was the best energy source for his time runes.

After making sure it was safe he modified them to extend their working field from only his room to the entire trunk. He didn't try to change the ratio conversion because, truth be told, he didn't fancy at the moment the hard work it implied. He only tested to combine a few 1/2 sets together: he put a clock inside a box with 1/2 time conversion; and this box inside another one with another set of 1/2 time conversion runes. It worked fine, but the energy consumption grew exponentially instead of linearly as it would with only a 1/4 time conversion rune set (it follows the same principle of a 16-bits ALU or of a computer RAM memory, that combine a few smaller ones to create the effect of a bigger one. It's cheaper and easiest to do, but it's a bit slower and it consumes more electricity to do the same job. However the difference is so small at that scale that manufacturers don't care).

Harry prepared a combination of 20 (all tied to the same source crystal) to use on a greenhouse with only a tree as experiment (1 day = 2868 years, 35-6 days). Of course he also included the needed runes so it had the basics (warm, water, magical pollination…).

The first time the source crystal was empty (and turned to dust) after 9 and a half hours (1135 years). The apple tree had produced a lot of little trees next to it; however all had burned and as result the soil had become very fertile. Hermione was the one who explained him that without a balance between the O2 (that plants gave off) and the CO2 (that plants absorbed); the air saturated with the O2 and it made easier to get a combustion of almost anything dry with the minimal effort.

For his second try he added a new runes set to cut a branch from each tree each artificial year, transported them far from them and burned them to produce additional CO2. He also added another that each artificial 50 years made diagnostics of the soil, the original tree and of a pair of random mature apples. The rest was the same (1 tree, 1 small water source crystal). The source crystal was, again, empty after 9 and a half hours. This time a lot of the trees had survived and to his shock the older ones were so high that they were touching the roof of the greenhouse (20 meters high). However the soil had lost most of its nutrients after being consumed by the trees and having almost nothing new to add (except the falling leaves and apples), and as result the fruit quality got gradually worse. After 700 years they simply were not good enough for human consumption.

In the third try he added 2 new components to the 'only 1 apple tree rule': grass and chickens (2 hens and 1 roster). The result was that there were more trees more separated that before. The chickens had multiplied from the original 3 to over 50. In the log he saw that at the beginning a lot of the chicken had died, especially when they were too many. The explanation to this was that there wasn't enough food. After a few generations they 'subconsciously' had learned that fact and stopped reproducing too much.

The log also showed that the trees were healthier this time, and the produced apples had a better quality. It had degraded slowly with the years, but no so badly as before. Even the worst ones were good enough for human consumption this time. Although the soil had lost some of his nutrients, the trees and plants had evolved to consume the ones the chicken usually provided in their craps and wastes (like broken eggs); and at the same time the chickens had evolved to produce more of the nutrients the plants needed, this way the plants grew quicker and they could eat more.

The chickens' health had been good and the diagnostics showed they could be eaten without any problems. However the number of eggs they put had fallen from 4-7 for week to 1-2.

In general the results were good and Harry decided that he would try again in the future at a greater scale when he managed to have a full closed ecosystem in the farm compartment. But first he would collect more source crystals.

The next one was the air energy. They could be obtained in any place with a geyser, a cyclone, an hurricane or a tornado. Let's say that the tornado needed for the gateway air source crystal was the most powerful in the last 5000 years.

His experiments with this element led him to discover that it worked better as an energy source for the runes with charms effects; like the ones that kept the food in ecstasy, the cleaner sets, the passive wards of the trunk (notice-me-not and so), the ones that moved the food from the farm to the kitchen and the ones from his clothes.

It would be dangerous to keep a source crystal next to his body, (what if it was destroyed by an attack that his clothes couldn't stop? The energy released would kill him) so he decided not to go that way for now.

By this time he began to consider writing all his discovering on the energies, the source crystal and so. He wanted to make sure he could teach everything to a worthy heir, perhaps his own sons; and didn't want to forget anything. This gave him a new idea. What would happen if he used the 'book ritual' on himself? After all the magic of the ritual made sure the result was very clear an understandable (he made it that way!). He tried and voilà: He had a new book detailing everything he knew about the different energies, where to find them, the rituals to create the sources crystals and his experiments (including images from his memories!).

He was overjoyed, until he remembered he still had other crystals to create, experiment onto and include in the book. Repeating the ritual would create an additional book, not merge the information with the previous one. What was the use of repeated information? That also reminded him of all the knowledge he had gathered from different persons, or the millions of books he had copied. That settled it. Next project: ritual to merge all his books and create new ones with better explanations and divided by subject and level.

Using the 'book ritual' as a base, weeks later he managed to do it at a small scale (5 books at the same time was the top). He dubbed it the 'merger ritual'. He could chose if he wanted to only merge them into one (that included a rune set that sensed the readers mind to find the better way at explaining things and the preferred language) or if he also wanted to divide them by subject and/or level. Each of the divided books was still connected to the whole and had, at the end, a note that explained what book (or books) the reader should select to continue his/her learning of the subject. And if the user wanted to add new information, it was very easy to remerge all the divided books and redo the ritual to add and divide.

With Hermione help, he merged all his books into one and then divided them by subject and level; reducing the millions of copied books to hundreds or perhaps thousands. The girl loved the way the books changed the explanations depending on a knowledgeable reader or an ignorant one (and you could manually change it to see, for example as a teacher, what your student was seeing). She went so far as starting her magic learning from the beginning and discovered so many things Hogwarts had never said…

The last elemental energy was earth. For a very small one Harry only had to search for a mountain with avalanches. For a big one? Earthquakes, of course. At the least a 9 on the Richter Scale one for the earth source crystal.

His experiments with this element showed him that the energy was very stable; so much in fact that it worked with all runes sets, and it was perfect for the rune sets that took care of the expansion charms of the compartments that required a lot of energy stability (a lot of energy up-downs would make them collapse, as seen in the experiments with the other energies).

This stability made him think about using it as energy source for other rituals. The problem was that he couldn't think of a way to test it without using them on himself, which he was not about to do until he knew it was safe. So it became a maybe and pushed it aside.

The next energy was 'sky', which was electricity (at the time of the Order electricity was only seen in the sky, so it was dubbed 'sky energy'). He easily could go to any power plant and to acquire smaller sky source crystals; however they generated so little electricity per second that it took a long time to make even a small one. So the best but harder way: Thunder and lighting. The average ray of lighting concentrates in 1 millisecond 2'5 TW of energy (the equivalent to 312 nuclear plants). For the gateway the source crystal should have at the least 15 TW.

In his experiments he learnt that this energy was the easiest to transform to workable power for his runes. However was somewhat unstable and full of up-downs. His runes couldn't stand this irregularity and stopped doing his job correctly (the effects were varied, from not working at all to doing their job too much. Only the runes that produced light worked fine, giving more or less light but doing their job). As he had thought, it worked perfectly with the runes used to power the machines that required electricity, like the television or the computer. It took him a little of research to learn the reason: muggle machines usually included little circuits to avoid it or added an UPS to the electrical supply to act as a filter (an UPS, or Uninterruptible Power Supply, is a device which broadcast the electricity it receives and store in a battery in a continuous, stable way, filtering any up-downs).

The life energy… was easy to find, hard to collect in big amounts without a bad conscience. There were two ways. The first one was to find a natural place so full of life and so fertile that everything grew at amazing speeds. For the second one first you had to gather in crystals the life energy from a recently conceived (not born!) being. It didn't matter if the being was a plant, an animal or a human, but the bigger, the more energy would be absorbed at once. As result, the being died. After recollecting a big enough number, the second step was to free all gathered energy in a natural location to artificially transform it in the place the first way needed.

True, every living being was full of life energy and they naturally produced it. However it became corrupted by their bodies and lives. The energy needed for the source crystals had to be pure, unaltered, just as it was at the moment they began to be.

The fastest way to produce smaller crystals was using humans, something Harry was not very kind of doing. Hermione suggested that he traveled to abortion centers were the human fetuses were going to die anyway, but he still didn't like the idea. At the end he decided to repeat the time runes experiment with the trees and the chickens and added runes to collect randomly life energy from the plants and animals.

When it was over he was surprised by the crystals size (the emeralds, rubies, sapphires and diamonds he had used to store the energy): they had grown! Before they were about 2 inches each, now they bigger ones had grown to 2 feet and had produced splinters. To his magical senses they felt… different; almost aware of their surroundings but not in the same way a human or an animal is, maybe most like a plant but not in the same way…

Harry stored some of them and used the rest to create small life source crystals. For the big one he already knew that a natural place existed thanks to the 'locator ritual'. He went there and found something that shocked him and Hermione: The Golden Fleece. Yes, the one from the Greek myths. The ritual transformed the mythological object into the 6th gateway crystal source.

Are you asking for the results of his experiments with this energy? They were… odd. No runes could use this pure energy as it was. The only thing that worked was leaving the source crystal in the farm compartment, and without connecting it to anything. The soil and plants absorbed the energy it naturally slowly emitted. In a few days everything looked healthier and growing better, even the animals.

One day, by accident, he pushed some of his own magic in one of the life source crystal he was experimenting. To his surprise he sensed it react to it and… changing to adapt to it. Seconds later he could perceive how the crystal felt… more like himself, his own magic. What was even more amazing: he could feel the crystal welcoming his presence.

When he tried, again, using it to power a runes set; he found that this time worked as if he had used his own magic to power them. However he could also feel a change in the runes, a feeling of… submissiveness, as if they were perceiving his presence and their aim to please him in any way they could. Had he just given them a partial awareness?

… He decided he needed to sleep and forget this for now or his head would explode.

The next day when he woke up he could feel the runes presence at the back of his mind even this far and with the time runes of his room active and giving the same 'aim to please' reaction from the previous day. It was amazing. He asked himself if the runes would want to please anyone or only him (after all this had happened after imbuing his own magic on the source crystal).

He tested it with Hermione, and could perceive how the runes seemed to prove her aura before becoming confused. Then he could swear that the feeling at the back of his mind was questioning him if she was a friend or no. He tried to mentally say that she was welcome but not too much. The runes seemed to get the idea because Harry noted the difference: Hermione could use them and benefit from them but they wouldn't make the effort of adapting to her like they would do to him. He didn't know how he knew they would adapt to serve him to the best level of their capacities, but he knew.

When he thought it was safe, he added one life source crystal (adapted to his own magic) to the wards runes as a secondary power supply to the one each specific set was using and to give them the same sort of awareness and servitude. It took them 3 weeks before becoming aware enough and for Harry to feel them at the back of his mind (possibly because they were not the only power source nor the main one). Thanks to this the wards became more efficient and Harry could somewhat direct them when he was not too far.

Hermione was told of this and was asked for possible uses she could think on. Of course she was left speechless, but after recovering she suggested to design a magical index of his library books. Having this sort of… limited magical A.I. would prove very useful when searching a specific book and so.

Harry thought it was pretty easy because one book as magical index was already invented (by a pureblood family some centuries ago and most of their descendants had forgotten about it). So he did it and connected it to a mini life source crystal to give it that limited A.I.

It had passed a year and a half since Hermione rescue, and he only had one crystal left. And the last energy needed… was death. Here was were things became a problem. Even the scroll explanation of this energy was difficult to understand. It is not the energy you could subtract killing a living thing (that was a less pure form of life energy). It described her as an anti-life energy; a void that tries to fill itself creating a powerful force, however it cannot be filled by anything but pure life energy. It cannot be artificially created, and there's always only one source that regenerates itself at the same pace the main life energy source regenerates. This force it's the death energy needed for the ritual.

This was a problem because with only one source there was no way they could camouflage the transformation with a smaller crystal of the same kind. The second problem became known when they did the 'location ritual'.

Country: England.

City: London.

Location: Ministry building. Department of Mysteries.

Object: Death Veil.

… Well, not everything was going to be easy, he supposed. And with the actual political situation in the magical world…

Because since that time six years ago when the purebloods factions all around the world used the situation to get in control of their governments, their bigotry and anti-muggle, anti-muggleborns and anti-Harry policies got worse and worse until revolution. Thousands of muggleborns, halfbloods and even some purebloods rebelled against their own governments. Some small countries resolved the situation quickly with the common people getting control and killing/banishing the elite pureblood. However in the bigger countries, like France or Bulgaria, the purebloods had a lot of more resources and were more prone to help each other, so they could get the situation under control for the moment, making most of the muggleborns to flee.

This soon led to the first Magical World War. And as most of the wizarding world population lived in United Kingdom, this became the center of everything. There the war future would be decided. If England pureblood faction won, they easily would help the rest countries in cleansing out the muggleborns everywhere. On the contrary if England rebel faction won, the rest of the countries will soon follow and give up. The main consequence of this was that every pureblood Govern and every rebel faction was sending their support there.

The 'rebel' faction was a lot more numerous and more powerful than most of the purebloods idiots who too lazy to train or use their magic a lot. The other faction, on the other case, had control of the resources the rebels lacked: money, magical artifacts, potions, spells knowledge…

The Ministry building was the pureblood main base, the 'icon' of their control; so it was very heavily defended and full of people. Yes, with his runes, clothes and skills Harry could easily enter undetected (as he had done before to gather their knowledge. It had been harder to find the coca cola recipe). However the ritual to transform the Death Veil into the death source crystal would be noticed and quickly investigated (they were in the same building after all). Even his best defenses wouldn't resist too much under very heavily fire without a constant power source. As he was the one to do the ritual he could not attend them, and Hermione was not powerful enough to last too much time. Also he couldn't use one of the smaller source crystals to power the temporal wards because it would corrupt the death energy and made the ritual fail.

For now he decided to finish everything else, like getting many additional small sources crystals and finishing his farm, for which he had a new idea:

He bought a lot of normal, not magical trunks; put his own expansion charms on them, connected them on the inside so their interiors became only one enormous land (joined in a circular way: A-B-C-D-E-…-A). The area size was about 30.000 km2 and the height was about 100 km. First he added the rune sets to simulate the different seasons, gravity and sun. Then using magic he added enough soil, fertilizer, stones of different kinds and even metals (steel, gold, silver, copper, iron…) to cover the entire area until it was 2 km high. He also added enough water to cover everything another 1 km.

He also threw inside a bag with six source crystals, one for each energy he had. The bag also included a very potent explosive, programmed to explode in 30 days and destroy the crystals, freeing the energies they contained. Add to that the 20 time runes set combination on the trunks for 2 whole days (about 5000 years) and the result was very changed landscape: Mountains, rivers, valleys, plains, lakes, a big sea…

As he had thought, the freed energies were powerful forces that altered the land, creating storms, volcanoes, earthquakes, tornados, tsunamis… all of which used the natural resources (water, air, earth) and altered them. The life energy affected everything and prepared it for life support.

While waiting those 2 days, he had managed to duplicate the Marauder's map magic and made one of the 'mini-world' he just had created. He took one of the time turners he had… _confiscated_ a long time ago (but he had never needed to use); put the 'mini-world' under his normal 'no aging' time runes (with the normal time conversion 1/2) and spend the next 4 hours (on the outside) and started planting everything he wanted to grow (like cocoa, rice, tomato, potato, lettuce, pea, carrot, sugar, cotton, fruit trees, camomile…) and prepared places for when he added animals. Of course he could not forget the sea and had researched the necessary sea biology and put a lot of sea plants (like weeds for the fresh water lakes or seaweeds for the sea water). He also added runes to control everything.

This took a lot of time, but anytime he finished one thing, he used the time turner to return and go to another free zone (thanks to the map). When he got tired he slept and when he got bored he trained for a bit. In general he was very dedicated to this.

Before adding the animals he used the time runes for about 10 years to make sure the plant life settled down. Then he added a lot of different animals like rabbits, cows, chickens, birds, fish, horses, bulls, deer, pigs, bees…

In more separated locations he also planted magical plants and even put some of the more docile magical creatures He even went so far to search for unicorns (the last ones on Earth were the ones from the Forbidden Forest at Hogwarts, and thanks to the acromantulas they were being wipe out. He used his magic to leave them the message of wanting to protect them and of a place where they would be safe. A few of them trusted his aura and went with him. Once inside they quickly went to the nearest forest.

He wasn't about to add the more dangerous beasts, like dragons; even if their parts were the most useful ingredients for potions. In its place he just tried to buy and acquire a decent quantity of ingredients to keep in the reserve. In the end the most common potions had different ways of being done with different ingredients, and the potions masters he had knowledge from knew how to substitute most of them.

When exploring he also found that the mountains had limited quantities of natural resources, like metals and precious stones. If he found a way so he could get them without never running out of them… A future project perhaps.

The previous farm compartment if his main trunk was emptied and everything moved to the 'mini-world'. In its place he placed the 'mini-world' trunks there and build some basic… factories using runes instead of machines to process and make a lot of the things he wanted, like bread or chocolate.

Months passed completing his remaining projects he wanted to finish before leaving. He even repeated the 'animagus ritual' choosing again earth (he didn't want at the moment a creature so different from the panther because it would take more time to get used to the animal senses); though it seemed he didn't have any affinity to others grounded animals because another hybrid panther appeared. After completing it he found a few improvements to his physicals abilities when transformed and his skin color acquired a silver touch in some areas.

When he thought he had everything ready, he started his plan.

As he needed help to protect himself while doing the ritual on the Death Veil, he went to the rebel faction, whom to get resources they usually worked as mercenaries (with the war there were so many mercenaries working for no one that nobody could recognize them). In exchange for some gold and potions they needed he hired a dozen (he had to swear an unbreakable oath for them to trust him without revealing himself).

He didn't explain the details until the mission day, and they were speechless at how easy was entering the Ministry building undetected with the hooded man help. They arrived without problems to the Veil room and Harry put defensive wards

Harry began the ritual and for the next 2 hours aurors came and tried to stop whatever was happening. At the beginning they were only small investigation units, however as they failed the aurors started to send everything they had. The rebels had an almost easy job thanks to the wards and the runes put on them to make them unnoticed and invisible.

When the ritual was over and the Death Veil transformed into the Death source crystal, Harry ordered the retreat.

He helped to heal the casualties and paid them before leaving to the place where Hermione was waiting for him under a glamour charm. He already had his trunk in the pocket and was ready to open the gateway.

He would do the gateway ritual here in England because of two things. First because it would release so much energy it would be noticed anywhere in the world and it wasn't possible for it to not be investigated by a large amount of wizards from everywhere. The location didn't matter. Second: He entered this world here in England. It would be poetic to be also his exit point.

- Is it already done? –she asked when he approached her.

- Yes. Are the set runes ready and in their positions?

- Almost…

He knew that a lot of wizards would come the moment he began to try to stop whatever he'd try because they were afraid of the unknown. These runes would create wards not only to defend them, also to contain most of the released power. Hermione would have to keep them up. Yes, she would spent her magic, however Harry had make her learn to consciously absorb magic from her surroundings, and the energies released by the ritual (pure enough to be absorbed, opposed to only the death energy from before) would be enough to recharge her reserves while she recharged the wards.

- Are you sure you want to do it now? You can wait…

- I'm sure.

Hermione nodded somewhat sadly. She knew the hooded man really wanted to start that new life. She was going to miss him. He had become her pillar in the last months, even with his silence and anonymity. He had cared for her, fed her and protected her. Maybe he had done unethical things like using magic on others to achieve his goals, but he never crossed the line. He had never hurt anyone. He was not a superhero from a tale, however he also wasn't the villain. He was a man with his own loads looking for his own place in the world.

- You can come with me if you want -he softly said, surprising her-. You had helped after all.

- I… I don't know -she answered unsure.

The hooded man nodded and continued preparing everything.

When everything was in its position, he started the ritual without more delays. The seven source crystals strongly shone and started to release beams of light which got together in one point. From the point raw and pure energy gave off in such amounts that even the land was shaking.

A strong sound could be heard at the same time Harry chanted the ritual verses to activate it. It sounded like a piece of paper when you tear it apart. The point where the beams of lights were joined began to expand, creating an enormous crack, a breach in the reality fabric. The crystals began to go up and float on the air.

As he had though, energies so strong couldn't be ignored and a lot of aurors started to come to prevent whatever. First from England, later even from other countries like France or Bulgaria. They were not completely fools and knew this had something to do with the one made at the Death Veil.

However they were not the only ones to appear; the rebel factions all over the world were using the diversion to assault their Ministries, while sending a small squadron here to keep the aurors busy and, if needed, to stop the 'hooded man' if whatever he was doing was dangerous.

The wards Harry had put were under heavily assault, and almost continuously Hermione had to recharge (as they had though). What they hadn't planned for was for the energies to break up and slowly destroy their clothes. Hermione had it easy to conjure more for herself each time, but not Harry. He needed to fully concentrate in the ritual and could not distract himself with it. However his clothes were not normal; the unique material created by him and the protection wards were making it very hard to break up. Oh, the energies were slowly disintegrating it like Hermione's; but not so fast. The only visible effects were the weakest part: the hood.

This didn't went unnoticed by some of the rebels outside the wards, specifically by one: Neville. When the hood fell apart, it didn't take him long to recognize that hair and those eyes.

- Look! It's Harry! Harry Potter!

Of course this produced the ingrained reactions in every wizard. Everybody turned towards the above mentioned, even the surprised Hermione.

And at that very moment the ritual caused a big flash, blinding everyone.

Once the light went down and their eyes got over it, they couldn't find anywhere the odd crystals; they had vanished. They only could see a shining door instead of the previous crack.

Harry, now that the ritual was over, looked at himself and noted the state of his clothes and the remains of his hood on the floor. Thanks God his trousers had survived, and so had the t-shirt under the ruined hoody, where he kept his reduced trunk inside the t-shirt pocket.

Then he looked at his surroundings and noted how everyone was looking at him with different expressions. Some with fear, others with hatred (like certain redhead). Some of the rebels with happiness.

- Harry Potter is here to help us! Let's finish this! With him we'll win! FOR THE REVOLUTION! –shouted Neville.

The rebels, encouraged, began the fight again against the surprised aurors; most of whom still didn't react at all.

Harry sweatdropped and theorized that the released energies had dissolved most of the runes from his clothes and that's why they could recognize him.

He turned to Hermione to see her for the last time. She still was frozen at the revelation.

- Goodbye Hermione –he calmly said with a smile.

And then he went through the portal.

That woke up some of the still frozen people, like Hermione.

- Harry…

For the first time in years she gave a true smile. Fully certain, she run to the door. She didn't know where she'd end, however she knew she couldn't be happy here. And if she found Harry again… it would mean they were fated.

With hope he went through the portal without noting how this was beginning to 'shake', as if losing stability.

The aurors attacked again the wards (the ones that could, because the rebels assault was too fierce). Among them was Ron Weasley, who had to come because of their little number (there weren't that many purebloods at the end). At seeing Harry his hatred consumed him and with his hunter mates he attacked the defensive wards with such a fury that it gave his magic a big boost. Now that the girl (as Hermione had a glamour he didn't recognize her) wasn't keeping them up, they didn't last long.

Ronald Billius Weasley was a lot of things. He was greedy. He was lazy. He was a big eater. He was very direct and didn't care about politeness, which made him usually rude. He usually didn't think when angry, which had become more usual as he grew. Seeing Harry Potter had remind him of his jealously, his envy, his greed, his hatred for him. He had got angry when Harry left and he couldn't live of his 'best mate's money'. He had got angrier when he left with what he 'deserved': the Death Wand. Of course he had been clever enough to not tell anyone, after all he didn't want any of the other hunters to know and get it before him. He never learned Harry had thrown it through the Death Veil. He wouldn't have believe if told.

Blinded by his strong emotions he run. Run through the energy contention wards (still up). Run to the portal even when its tremors were getting worse and more violent. He just run and went through it.

Then BOOM.

Everyone that had crossed the contention wards were killed instantaneously by the explosion. The ones outside were saved for the moment.

Many could see the wards, who had become visible, trying and slowly failing to contain the explosion, which was getting bigger. The most clever ones left at the moment (Neville was telling the rebels it was a trap to kill the purebloods). The rest weren't so lucky and would pay their lack of common sense with their lives.

Hours later, when people went back to investigate the place, they would find a 10 km radius crater with no bodies, no crystals, no portals… nothing at all.

The rebel factions, who took advantage of the diversion to assault the purebloods strongholds, had managed to capture the most important ones, like Ministry building or Hogwarts. Azkaban was bombarded by muggle explosives in a try to disintegrate the Dementors. It worked.

This victory was the war crucial moment, because it let the rebels to easily take control of the rest of the country (purebloods, in their arrogance, hadn't thought possible to be defeated and didn't had others strongholds to refuge. And as the other countries had send so many purebloods and they had died, their rebel factions could return to their own countries and defeat any remaining opposition. The until then neutral factions (like goblins and big product sellers who had preferred to remain neutral to sell their services to everyone) decided to ally with the obvious winning side and helped them to take control of their countries.

For years the magical world would be licking their wounds and would form new governments more alike the muggle ones with equality and justice laws.

In the history books they would write about Harry Potter, who had saved them twice of a terrible Dark Lord, and in exchange he was betrayed, looked down on, and persecuted; only for him to save them again when they more needed him using strong magic to trap and kill most of the tyrants who oppressed the people, helping them to end the war and make a better world.

Nobody knew what happened to him, but people began to use expressions like 'by Harry' instead of 'by Merlin. The rumors spread and the legend was born.

What happened to him? And to Hermione? And to Ron? Who knows. Maybe they ended up in different worlds. Perhaps the three ended up in the same one, or only two of them. Maybe they died. Who knows. However it is known one thing: Wherever Harry was he had a new chance to live, to fight and to be happy. A new adventure to be told.

**THE END**

* * *

><p>Well, I'm back and I managed to finish the traslation.<p>

Once I went over the story again, I couldn't left it as it was and had to improve it.

This is the restult: 8921 MORE words than the Spanish version, making this over 17000 words.

This is your prize for waiting.

As always remeber English it's not my language, so it you see mistakes, TELL ME, PLEASE.

Review if you liked it and if you want for me to try to write or translate more stories.


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